m 


GOETHE: 


HIS   LIFE  AND   WORKS. 


AN   ESSAY. 


BY 

GEORGE   H.   CALVERT. 


BOSTON: 
LEE   AND    SHEPARD,    PUBLISHERS. 

NEW    YORK: 

LEE,  SHEPARD  AND   DILLINGHAM. 
1872. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1872,  by 

GEORGE  H.  CALVERT, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Cambridge :  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.  WEIMAR  AND  ITALY      .  ' e 

II.  POETRY  AND  SCIENCE 39 

III.  SCHILLER 75 

IV.  FRIENDSHIPS 108 

V.  LOVES 140 

VI.  FAUST 196 

VII.  CONCLUSION 243 


GOETHE, 
i. 

WEIMAR   AND    ITALY. 

To  the  English-speaking  public  Goethe  is 
the  great  German  Poet  who  wrote  WertJier  and 
Faust,  —  a  large,  nebulous,  remote  figure.  A 
smaller  circle  can  call  over  the  catalogue  of  his 
principal  creative  works,  prose-fictions  as  well 
as  poems,  and  knows  that  he  has  a  name  in 
Science  ;  and  that,  surviving  to  be  over  four- 
score, he  lived  his  latter  days  in  high  state  at 
Weimar,  the  acknowledged  primate  of  all  Ger- 
man literary  dioceses,  a  sage  as  well  as  poet. 
But  few  know  that  behind  the  poet,  beneath 
the  writer  and  thinker,  lying  as  solid  founda- 
tion to  the  splendid  superstructure  of  sixty 
printed  volumes,  is  a  practical  man  of  business, 
a  vigorous,  rigorous,  methodical  administrator, 
who,  as  such,  did  better  work  and  more  of  it 
than  was  ever  done,  except  by  a  few  of  the  pre- 


6  GOETHE. 

dominant  lawgivers  and  wisest,  long-lived  rulers 
of  populous  nations. 

For  more  than  fifty  years  the  chosen,  trusted, 
appreciated  friend  of  Carl  August,  Duke,  after- 
wards Grand-Duke,  of  Weimar,  Goethe  was  for 
the  first. ten  years  of  his  long  abode  in  Weimar, 
from  his  twenty-sixth  to  his  thirty-sixth  year, 
the  chief  minister  of  the  wise  young  Duke, 
and  the  virtual  administrator  of  the  ducal-  gov- 
ernment, reorganizing  during  that  first  decade 
some  of  the  most  important  of  its  departments, 
and  creating  new  ones. 

No  detraction  is  it  from  the  breadth  of  the 
principles  he  applied  as  political  worker,  that 
Goethe's  field  was  limited  ;  but  fortunate  for 
the  world  that  it  was  limited.  The  reorganiz- 
ing of  a  Prussia  or  an  Austria  might  have  swal- 
lowed up  the  whole  man,  or  have  absorbed  so 
much  of  his  vitality  for  more  years  as  to  have 
maimed  the  poet ;  whereas,  his  ministerial 
functions  in  Weimar, — performed  too  as  they 
were  through  personal  love  for  and  enlightened 
sympathy  with  the  glorious  young  Duke,  — 
were  but  a  phasis  in  his  unfolding,  early  lessons 
that  were  an  initiatory  discipline  for  the  poet 
and  thinker,  strenuous  exercises  which  de- 
veloped, fortified,  and  mellowed  the  faculties 
whose  predestined  field  was  literature.  What- 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  J 

ever  Goethe  did,  saw,  read,  whatever  he  expe- 
rienced in  any  shape,  he  made  subservient  to 
his  culture.  In  pains  and  pleasures,  in  the 
most  plodding  labor  and  the  -most  fantastic 
amusement,  in  all  the  passages  of  his  daily  life, 
he  kept  his  growth  and  improvement  ever  be- 
fore him.  From  everything  and  everybody  he 
came  in  contact  with  he  drew  some  food.  Like 
Prospero,  he  was  — 

"  All  dedicate 
To  closeness  and  the  bettering  of  his  mind  ;  " 

but  he  did  not  need,  like  Prospero,  "  to  neglect 
worldly  ends  ;  "  all  such  he  made  serve  his 
primary  end  of  self-culture,  moral,  aesthetical, 
intellectual  self-culture. 

In  his  twenty-eighth  year,  January  1777,  lit- 
tle more  than  a  twelvemonth  from  his  arrival 
in  Weimar,  Goethe  writes  to  Lavater  :  "  Let 
my  present  life  continue  so  long  as  it  will,  at 
any  rate  I  have  heartily  enjoyed  a  genuine  ex- 
perience of  the  variegated  throng  and  press  of 
the  world,  —  sorrow,  hope,  love,  work,  wants, 
adventure,  ennui,  impatience,  folly,  joy,  the  ex- 
pected and  the  unknown,  the  superficial  and 
the  profound,  just  as  the  dice  threw,  with  fetes, 
dances,  sleighings,  —  adorned  in  silk  and  span- 
gles, —  a  marvelous  manage !  And  withal, 
dear  brother,  God  be  praised,  in  myself  and  in 


8  GOETHE. 

my  real  aims  in  life  I  am  quite  happy."  About 
the  same  time,  in  a  letter  from  Weimar  to  a 
friend,  Merck  says  :  "  Goethe  is  the  soul  and 
direction  of  everything,  and  all  are  contented 
with  him  because  he  serves  many  and  injures 
no  one.  Who  can  withstand  the  disinterested- 
ness of  this  man  ? "  Too  earnest  a  man  was 
Goethe,  too  true  and  large  a  soul,  to  be  flattered 
by  the  privileges  of  high  worldly  position. 
He  took  the  chief  place  under  the  Duke,  to 
be  useful  to  him  and  his  people.  He  could  be 
uniquely  useful,  because  he  did  'not  covet  the 
place,  did  not  climb  up  to  it  from  below,  but 
descended  upon  it  a  winged  benefactor,  who 
folded  for  a  time  his  wings,  or  rather  made  of 
them  magic  arms  with  which  all  other  arms 
must  willingly  co-work. 

Looking  at  the  wide  book-shelf,  filled  by 
Goethe's  printed  works,  and  knowing  their 
range  and  achievement,  it  is  at  first  hard  to 
figure  to  one's  self  that,  in  the  first  years  of 
his  residence  in  Weimar,  the  writer  of  these 
scores  of  teeming  volumes  would,  for  two  or 
three  weeks,  scour  the  whole  ducal  domain  on 
horseback  to  supervise  the  drawing  of  the  men 
for  the  war-contingent ;  that  at  another  time 
he  would  accompany  the  master  of  the  ducal 
forests  and  farms  over  his  wide  field  of  duty ; 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  9 

that,  as  controller  of  the  finance^  not  the  light- 
est of  his  tasks  was  to  keep  the  liberal  Duke 
from  overrunning  the  constable.  To  Goethe 
may  be  applied  what  himself  said  of  Frederick 
the  Great,  that  "  Whatever  he  undertook  he 
went  at  with  such  zeal  as  though  that  alone  en- 
gaged all  his  activity,  and  as  though  he  had 
never  brought  anything  else  to  pass."  In  those 
days  Goethe  would  start  up  from  bed  at  a  cry 
of  fire,  and  hurry  to  a  neighboring  village,  re- 
turning the  next  day  with  his  hair  singed  and 
feet  blistered.  The  beautiful  park  at  Weimar 
was  his  creation,  and  in  his  thirty-second  year 
he  was  President  of  the  Chambers.  The  en- 
largement and  elevation  of  the  University  of 
Jena  shared  some  of  his  attention,  with  the  im- 
provement of  the  public  schools.  He  organ- 
ized and  then  directed  the  theatre,  and  the  ac- 
tors he  instructed  and  formed.  Once  when  an 
actor,  accustomed  to  higher  parts,  refused  that 
of  a  trooper,  Goethe  brought  him  to  by  say- 
ing :  "  If  you  will  not  play  the  trooper,  I  will." 
Goethe  was  himself  a  capital  actor.  In  the 
like  spirit  he  told  his  servant,  Stadelman,  that 
if  some  cloths  he  had  ordered  for  wiping  books 
and  engravings  were  not  in  their  place,  he 
should  go  out  and  buy  them  himself.  These 
incidents  prove  the  thoroughness  of  his  pro- 


IO  GOETHE. 

cedures,  and  at  the  same  time  they  give 
glimpses  into  the  manly  cordiality  of  his  daily 
life.  He  gave  lectures  on  Osteology  in  Jena  ; 
he  studied  Anatomy  with  such  insight  as  to 
discover  an  intermaxillary  bone  in  man,  and 
Botany  to  such  purpose  that  his  Metamor- 
phoses of  Plants  is  a  valuable  addition  to  the 
discoveries  and  expositions  of  science.  The 
wide  circle  of  Goethe's  practical  experience 
had  been  incomplete  had  he  not  witnessed  — 

"  The  grappling  vigor  and  rough  frown  of  war." 

In  the  advance  of  the  Prussians  into  France, 
in  1792,  the  Duke  of  Weimar  had  a  command, 
and  Goethe  accompanied  him.  The  next  year 
he  was  again  the  companion  of  his  friend  at 
the  siege  of  Mayence. 

But  during  the  ten  years  of  active  states- 
manship, from  1776  to  1786,  ever  strong  and 
stronger  within  him  was  the  consciousness  of 
his  poetic  and  literary  vocation.  Amid  the 
most  prosaic  of  doings  poems  sprang  up,  like 
wild  flowers  in  a  wheat-field,  not  destined  like 
these  to  be  cut  down  and  cast  aside,  but  to  be 
laid  away  as  finally  the  best  sowing  of  his  lav- 
ish hand.  Of  such  high  method  was  he,  that, 
without  neglecting  aught  of  his  manifold  un- 
dertakings, many  were  the  hours  and  the  days 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  \\ 

consecrated  to  finer  and  more  congenial  activ- 
ity, hours  sparkling  with  life  and  light,  which 
refreshed  and  strengthened  him,  and  gave  him- 
courage  for  his  coarser  labors.  But  now  was 
come  the  time  when,  in  the  ordering  of  his  in- 
dustrious days,  the  more  prosaic  work  was  to 
be  secondary  and  the  poetic  primary.  To  the 
public  business  of  the  Duchy  he  had  given  a 
sure  momentum  ;  he  had,  part  designedly,  part 
unconsciously,  by  degrees  cultivated  his  young 
chief,  who  was  six  or  seven  years  his  junior, 
and  was  of  most  arable  stuff ;  as  friend  and 
subject,  and  as  citizen,  he  had  done  a  large 
and  arduous  duty,  and  had  done  it  well ;  and 
now  he  longed  for  freedom,  and  he  yearned  for 
Italy. 

Goethe  was  in  his  thirty-seventh  year  when 
he  set  out  on  his  journey  southward.  From 
all,  save  the  Duke,  he  kept  his  project  secret, 
and  one  day,  late  in  the  season,  in  1786,  he 
disappeared  from  Carlsbad,  his  usual  summer- 
resort,  and  alone,  and  under  an  assumed  name, 
he  crossed  the  Alps.  Unencumbered  by  com- 
panion or  by  his  own  fame,  he  wished  to  con- 
front the  longed-for  land.  Never  did  traveller 
into  crowded,  illuminated  Italy  see  more,  learn 
more,  enjoy  more,  and,  except  his  great  coun- 
tryman, Luther,  three  centuries  earlier,  profit 


12  GOETHE. 

more  for  himself,  and  through  him  for  the 
world.  The  rare  fullness  of  Goethe's  endow- 
«ment,  with  the  fineness  of  his  organization,  em- 
powered him  to  see  things  as  they  are,  to  see 
around  and  into  them,  —  especially  things  on 
the  plane  of  the  beautiful,  —  with  a  fidelity  sel- 
dom equaled.  Never  man  had  a  clearer,  surer 
eye  for  the  truth  in  most  provinces  of  observa- 
tion, thought,  and  action.  Soon  after  his  en- 
trance into  Italy,  he  wrote  to  one  of  his 
friends  :  "  How  rejoiced  I  am  that  I  have  dedi- 
cated my  life  to  the  True,  as  it  is  thence  so 
easy  for  me  to  pass  over  to  the  Great,  which  is 
only  the  highest,  purest  point  of  the  true." 
The  man  who  had  a  right  to  say  that,  and 
whose  high-strung  faculties  were  busy  for  four- 
score years,  surely  lived  a  great,  a  radiant  life, 
aye,  and  a  blessed  life,  despite  his  share  of  sor- 
rows and  troubles,  — a  full  crop,  from  the  very 
richness  of  his  passional  and  emotional  nature.. 
Goethe's  first  long  halt  in  Italy  was  at  Ven- 
ice. For  three  weeks,  eyes,  senses,  sensibili- 
ties, aptitudes  were  plied  as  never  before  ;  for 
that  Shakespeare  visited  Italy  is  only  a  sur- 
mise. The  morning  was  devoted  to  Iphigenia  : 
his  heartiest,  nearest  companion  was  ever  some 
child  of  the  brain,  to  whose  unfolding  he  gave 
his  freshest  hours.  Art  and  nature,  pictures 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  13 

and  architecture,  men  and  their  manners,  do- 
ings, traffic,  amusements,  these  filled  with  life 
the  sunny  noons  and  afternoons.  Powerfully 
was  he  impressed  by  the  architecture  of  Ven- 
ice :  "  It  rose  up  before  him,"  he  said,  "  like  a 
ghost  out  of  a  grave."  In  the  evening,  one  or 
other  of  the  theatres  attracted  and  busied  him, 
and  before  sleeping  he  wrote  to  friends,  or  made 
more  secure  with  his  pen  some  of  the  harvest 
he  had  gathered  during  the  long,  lively  day. 
From  Venice  he  hurried  through  Ferrara,  Bo- 
logna, Florence,  Arezzo,  Perugia,  so  eager  was 
he,  as  eager  as  Luther,  to  reach  Rome.  When 
he  first  found  himself  within  the  walls,  he  did 
not,  like  Luther,  fall  on  his  knees.  Happily 
for  us  and  himself,  Goethe  had  not  been 
brought  up  a  monk  :  happily  for  himself  and 
for  us,  Luther  had  been. 

On  November  ist,  1786,  his  first  day  in 
Rome,  Goethe  writes  in  a  letter  to  Weimar : 
"  Dreams  of  my  youth  I  see  here  living  before 
me."  At  the  end  of  a  week,  after  having 
partly  familiarized  himself  with  the  more  prom- 
inent objects  and  scenes,  keeping  his  eyes  open 
and  coming  again,  he  makes  this  practical  re- 
mark :  "  It  is  only  in  Rome  that  we  can  pre- 
pare ourselves  for  Rome."  Three  days  later 
he  writes  :  "  I  enjoy  here  a  clearness  and  calm- 


14  GOETHE. 

ness,  of  which  for  many  a  day  I  have  had  no 
feeling.  My  practice  of  seeing  and  reading  off 
all  things  just  as  they  are,  my  loyalty  in  letting 
the  eye  be  its  own  light,  my  entire  renounce- 
ment of  all  pretension,  stand  me  once  more  in 
good  stead  and  make  me  very  happy."  This, 
his  calm,  broad  objectivity,  is  a  chief  source  of 
Goethe's  literary  and  scientific  faithfulness,  of 
his  mastership.  He  was  able  not  to  allow  his 
individuality  to  refract  the  beams  thrown  upon 
his  mind  by  the  object  he  gazed  at.  From  its 
depth  as  well  as  breadth,  and  from  its  having 
been  assiduously  wrought  and  polished  and 
freed  by  culture  from  opacities  and  densities, 
his  intellect  was  a  bright,  clear,  faithful  reflec- 
tor of  what  fell  on  it. 

Goethe  had  that  brisk  joy  in  discovery,  that 
lively  zeal  for  truth,  which  made  it  easy  for 
him  to  renounce  his  personality  and  to  consti- 
tute himself  a  medium,  but  a  conscious,  exhil- 
arating medium  for,  not  the  transmission 
merely  of  light,  but,  in  its  unobstructed  trans- 
mission, for  its  purification  and  focalization. 
Behind  none,  the  least  or  the  largest  of  his 
manifold  labors  and  endeavors,  was  there  ever 
a  sordid  or  a  selfish  motive.  The  stream  of 
his  life  he  ever  kept  unmuddied  by  ambitious 
aims  :  he  never  wrote  a  volume  or  a  page  for 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  15 

pelf  or  power  :  he  never  sought  the  society  of 
an  individual  or  a  company  to  serve  some 
solely  personal  purpose,  but  always  from  the 
pure  impulse  of  feeding  his  affections,  or  from 
the  noble,  never  satisfied  appetite  for  knowl- 
edge and  truth.  Goethe  was  not  an  ambitious 
man,  he  was  an  aspiring  man.  Plenty  and  to 
spare  there  always  are  of  ambitious  men,  men 
who  hugely  desire  and  hungrily  work  for 
worldly  elevation,  outward  possession,  and  ap- 
plause. Aspiring  men  are  rare,  men  who 
earnestly  desire  and  zealously  work  for  spirit- 
ual elevation,  for  enlarged  inward  possession 
and  disinterested  satisfactions.  Our  country, 
with  its  broad  possibilities,  its  vivifying  abun- 
dance, its  unchecked  movement,  its  free  polit- 
ical solicitations,  is  flooded,  half  swamped  one 
at  times  almost  fears,  with  ambitious  men.  It 
must  be  so.  Observe  at  a  station  that  for  fur- 
ther flight  the  wheels  of  the  great  locomotive 
need  gross  greasing.  But  let  the  passengers 
have  an  eye  to  the  strength  of  the  axles  and 
the  competence  of  the  conductor. 

Towards  the  middle  of  December  Goethe 
writes  :  "  This  letter  will  reach  you  about  New 
Year.  I  wish  you  all  happiness.  Before  the 
end  of  it  we  shall  meet  again,  and  that  will  be 
no  small  joy.  The  past  year  was  the  most  im- 


1 6  GOETHE. 

portant  of  my  life  ;  whether  I  now  die  or  last 
a  while  longer,  in  either  case  it  was  good. 

"  The  new  birth,  which  is  turning  me  inside 
out,  goes  on.  I  counted  upon  learning  some- 
thing thoroughly  here  ;  but  I  did  not  think  I 
should  have  to  go  so  far  back  to  school,  that  I 
should  have  to  unlearn  so  much,  nay,  to  learn 
the  very  opposite.  But  I  am  convinced  of  it 
now,  and  have  wholly  given  myself  up  to  it, 
and  now  the  more  I  am  obliged  to  abnegate 
myself,  the  more  is  my  joy."  No  wonder 
Goethe  knew  so  much  and  so  well,  he  who 
knew  how  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight  to  make 
himself  an  obedient,  eager  pupil.  Hence,  too, 
his  fresh,  boyish  interest,  to  the  last,  in  all 
things,  even  the  most  familiar.  He  kept  on 
plying  his  inward  sap,  and  thence  never  ceased 
putting  forth  new  leaves  ;  and  so  he  enjoyed  a 
spring  feeling  even  into  his  last  months  on 
earth.  Herder  said  that  Goethe  was  all  his 
life  a  great  child.  Your  self-assertor  is  a  lim- 
ited learner.  He  stiffens  himself  into  impervi- 
ousness  against  the  rays  that  are  ever  stream- 
ing from  Nature's  countless  focuses,  rays  lib- 
erated by  the  bold  thought  of  open,  humble 
seekers.  His  self-esteem  becomes  a  perverted 
citadel,  which  warns  off  the  approach  of  the 
best  friends.  From  the  hard,  smooth  crust  of 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  17 

his  self-sufficiency  knowledge,  especially  new 
knowledge,  meets  no  open-armed,  joyful  hospi- 
tality :  light  is  beaten  back. 

Goethe  was  a  man  of  the  world,  the  chief  fig- 
ure at  a  princely  court,  a  man  steeped  in  the 
passions  and  vexations  of  life  ;  and  yet  he  was 
the  opposite  of  blast.  In  him  there  was 
nothing  of  Chateaubriand's  life-weariness,  no 
blunted  sensibilities  even  at  eighty,  no  marks 
of  exhaustion.  At  all  stages  of  his  prolonged, 
strenuous  career  he  had  lived  healthily.  In 
his  latter  decades,  as  in  his  earlier,  a  spring 
of  sound  feeling  gushed  daily  in  his  breast, 
gushed  still  with  force  enough  to  flow  outward 
in  sympathy  and  helpfulness.  "  I  live  on  a 
strict  diet  and  keep  myself  tranquil,  in  order 
that  objects  shall  not  find  my  soul  over-excited, 
but  shall  excite  it.  Thus  is  one  much  less  ex- 
posed to  error."  Thus  he  writes  from  Rome. 
With  what  intelligent  devotedness  he  worked  ! 
ever  subordinating  the  lower  to  the  higher. 
And  no  one  knew  better  than  he  the  efficacy 
of  alternation  in  work.  While  seeing  and 
studying  Rome  and  her  treasures  he  wrought 
at  Tasso  or  Egmont  or  Faust,  and  continued 
his  botanical  studies.  Rome  became  sec- 
ondary :  he  used  it  as  a  stimulant  and  fertilizer : 


1 8  GOETHE. 

the  atmosphere  he  there  breathed  quickened 
his  faculties  to  their  best  productiveness. 

On  the  twenty-first  of  February  he  writes : 
"  To-morrow  we  [his  friend  Tishbein  accompa- 
nied him]  set  out  for  Naples.  I  rejoice  in  the 
prospect  of  seeing  so  much  that  is  new  and  is 
said  to  be  so  unspeakably  beautiful,  and  I  hope 
in  that  paradise  to  gain  new  freedom  and  will 
to  return  to  the  study  of  Art  here  in  earnest 
Rome. 

"  Packing  is  easy  to  me :  I  do  it  with  a 
lighter  heart  than  six  months  ago  when  I 
parted  from  all  that  I  so  much  love  and  value. 
Yes,  it  is  already  a  half  year,  and  of  the  four 
months  passed  in  Rome  I  have  lost  not  a  mo- 
ment ;  which  is,  to  be  sure,  saying  a  good  deal, 
but  nevertheless  not  too  much." 

Two  days  after  arriving  in  Naples  he  writes  : 
"  I  forgive  any  one  who  loses  his  senses  in 
Naples  ;  "  and  a  week  later  :  "  That  no  Nea- 
politan will  budge  from  Naples,  and  that  her 
poets  sing  of  the  site  in  excessive  hyperbole, 
is  entirely  excusable."  Already  his  eyes  are 
set  towards  Sicily  :  "  The  packet  for  Palermo 
went  off  to-day  with  a  pure,  strong  north-wind. 
How  my  looks  strai'ned  after  the  full  sails  as 
the  vessel  passed  through  between  Capri  and 
Cape  Minerva,  and  at  last  disappeared !  To 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  19 

see  a  beloved  person  so  depart  would  kill  me 
with  very  longing."  —  "  In  these  last  days  the 
storms  have  shown  us  a  glorious  sea.  There 
we  could  study  waves  in  due  kind  and  shape. 
After  all,  Nature  is  the  only  book  which  offers 
us  great  contents  on  every  page."  — "  Naples 
is  a  Paradise  ;  everybody  lives  in  a  kind  of  in- 
toxicated self-forgetfulness.  I  scarcely  know 
myself;  I  seem  to  me  another  man.  Yester- 
day I  said  to  myself —  Either  thou  wast  for- 
merly mad,  or  thou  art  so  now."  While  in 
Naples  he  went  into  company  (which  he  had 
not  done  in  Rome),  ascended  three  times 
Vesuvius,  then  in  full  eruption,  and  saw  the 
celebrated  Lady  Hamilton,  she  whom  a  witty 
Englishman  some  years  later  called  Moll  Cleo- 
patra. 

Head  winds  lengthened  the  Sicilian  voyage 
to  four  days.  Lying  in  his  berth,  to  keep  sea- 
sickness at  bay,  Goethe  worked  at  Tasso.  He 
had  not  been  long  in  Palermo  when  he  felt 
that  this  enchanting  sea-girt  scenery  is  the  best 
commentary  on  the  Odyssey  of  Homer.  He 
bought  a  copy  and  read  with  such  sympathy 
that  soon  he  was  wrought  to  a  productive 
mood,  and  Nausikaa  became  the  centre  of  a 
tragic  conception.  Now,  in  his  walks  about 
this  Eden,  he  had  to  him  the  most  welcome  of 


2O  GOETHE. 

all  companions,  —  a  lovely  woman  whom  his 
brain  was  rearing  and  adorning.  But  on  the 
seventeenth  of  April,  a  fortnight  after  landing, 
he  writes  :  "  It  is  a  real  misfortune  to  be  pur- 
sued and  tempted  by  various  spirits.  This 
morning  early  I  went  to  the  public  garden  with 
the  fixed,  quiet  purpose  to  continue  my  poetic 
dreams  ;  but  before  I  was  aware  of  it  I  was 
seized  hold  of  by  another  spirit  which  had  been 
haunting  me  for  some  time. 

"  The  many  plants  which  I  was  accustomed 
to  see  in  tubs  and  pots,  nay,  the  greatest  part 
of  the  year  behind  glass,  stand  here  fresh  and 
gay  in  the  open  air,  and  inasmuch  as  they 
entirely  fulfill  their  destination  they  become 
more  distinct  to  us.  In  the  presence  of  so 
many  new  and  renewed  forms  the  old  whim 
came  upon  me  :  could  I  not  in  this  throng  dis- 
cover the  Urpflanze,  the  original  plant  ?  [that 
is,  the  primary  type  of  all  vegetation.]  Such 
there  must  surely  be.  For,  by  what  sign  should 
I  recognize  that  this  or  that  form  is  a  plant  if 
they  were  not  all  formed  on  one  model  ? 

"  BafHed  was  my  poetic  purpose  :  the  garden 
of  Alcinous  had  vanished,  and  in  its  place  a 
common  garden  opened  before  me.  Why  are 
we  moderns  so  pulled  about  ?  Wherefore  are 
we  stimulated  to  requirements  which  we  can- 
not fulfill?" 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  21 

Homer,  said  Goethe  to  himself,  while  writ- 
ing that  beautiful  book  of  Nausikaa  in  the 
Odyssey,  was  not  liable  to  be  distracted  from 
his  heavenly  task  by  the  allurements  of  a 
scientific  hypothesis,  newly  broached  in  his  own 
brain.  Not  he  indeed.  The  poets  of  Greece, 
and  all  other  Greeks,  were  far  enough  from 
being  visited  by  scientific  imaginations  ;  hardly 
even  when  the  poetic  and  the  great  age  of 
Greece  had  passed,  and  upon  the  clear  mind  of 
Aristotle  had  dawned  the  prolific  truth,  that 
only  through  her  details  are  the  wholes  of  Na- 
ture to  be  comprehended,  only  through  induc- 
tion can  Law  be  fully  recognized  and  firmly 
established.  Now  at  last  it  is  known,  that  even 
minds  of  the  deepest  grasp  and  widest  compass 
cannot  be  sure  of  a  generic  conclusion  without 
the  verification  of  facts.  And  Goethe,  the 
poet,  has  done  not  a  little  to  the  establishment 
and  fortification  of  this  assurance.  He  was 
both  deductive  and  inductive.  He  was  open  to 
vast  a  priori  visions,  and  he  was  capable  of 
patiently  putting  them  to  the  test  of  touch. 
At  once  so  large  and  so  delicate  were  his  en- 
dowments, and  thence  through  them  so  direct 
and  susceptible  his  rapport  with  Nature,  that  he 
caught  far-off  glimpses  of  her  secrets,  at  great 
moments  felt  her  throb  through  his  arteries, 


22  GOETHE. 

had  presentiments  of  yet  undiscovered  lights. 
From  the  chapter  on  "  The  Poet  as  a  Man  of 
Science  "  in  the  very  full  and  admirable  Life 
of  Goethe,  by  Mr.  Lewes,  I  take  the  following 
paragraph :  — 

"  Place  a  flower  in  the  hands  of  the  cleverest 
man  of  your  acquaintance,  provided  always  he 
has  not  read  modern  works  of  science,  -and 
assure  him  that  leaf,  calyx,  corolla,  bud,  pistil, 
and  stamen,  differing  as  they  do  in  color  and 
in  form,  are  nevertheless  all  modified  leaves ; 
assure  hinvthat  flower  and  fruit  are  but  modifi- 
cations of  one  typical  form,  which  is  the  leaf; 
and  if  he  has  any  confidence  in  your  knowledge 
he  may  accept  the  statement,  but  assuredly  it 
will  seem  to  him  a  most  incomprehensible  para- 
dox. Place  him  before  a  human  skeleton,  and, 
calling  his  attention  to  its  manifold  forms, 
assure  him  that  every  bone  is  either  a  vertebra, 
or  the  appendage  to  a  vertebra,  and  that  the 
skull  is  a  congeries  of  vertebrae  under  various 
modifications  ;  he  will,  as  before,  accept  your 
statement,  perhaps  ;  but  he  will,  as  before, 
think  it  one  of  the  refinements  of  transcendental 
speculation  to  be  arrived  at  only  by  philoso- 
phers. Yet  both  of  these  astounding  proposi- 
tions are  first  principles  in  Morphology  ;  and 
in  the  History  of  Science  both  of  these  proposi- 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  23 

tions  are  to  be  traced  to  Goethe.  Botanists 
and.  anatomists  have,  of  course,  greatly  modified 
the  views  he  promulgated,  and  have  substituted 
views  nearer  and  nearer  the  truth,  without  yet 
being  quite  at  one.  But  he  gave  the  impulse 
to  their  efforts." 

The  plaint  of  Goethe  at  Naples  was  neverthe- 
less sincere.  So  full  was  his  being,  that  by  nat- 
ural equipment  he  was  a  Greek -and  at  the  same 
time  a  modern  and  a  Teuton.  In  that  warm 
air  and  glowing  landscape,  reading  the  Odyssey, 
which  he  says,  "  was  to  him  now  for  the  first 
time  a  living  word,"  the  Greek  was  uppermost. 
His  plaintive  interrogatory  may  however  be 
met  with  another  question.  Why  was  his 
Nausikaa  never  finished  ?  And  why  did 
Achilleis,  and  Prometheus,  and  Elpenor  remain 
fragments  ?  These,  to  be  sure,  were  not  his 
only  uncompleted  undertakings  ;  for  his  mind 
was  so  generative  that  in  its  fervent  moods 
subjects  crowded  upon  him  (he  once  wrote  to 
Schiller,  "  I  can  only  think  in  so  far  as  I  pro- 
duce "),  subjects  which  in  the  glow  of  the  mo- 
ment rounded  themselves  to  glistening  wholes, 
but  which  his  imagination  could  not  hold  so 
steadily  and  continuously  in  its  grasp  as  to  give 
them  aesthetic  organization.  But  all  the  above- 
mentioned  he  worked  at  for  some  time  and  then 


24  GOETHE. 

abandoned.  Is  not  this  the  cause  of  their 
abandonment,  that  a  Grecian  hero  will  not  bear, 
being  taken  out  of  old  Greece,  cannot  live  but 
on  Grecian  air  ?  Three  thousand  years,  though 
it  be  a  small  segment  of  the  circle  of  humanity 
on  earth,  and  may  imply  nothing  comparable 
in  degree  to  the  change  of  physical  conditions 
from  the  miocene  to  the  eocene  periods  in  the 
earth's  growth,  does  imply  a  change  in  moral 
conditions,  and  such  a  change,  as  we  know  from 
social  and  historical  facts,  that  the  man  of  then 
would  find  himself  inadequately  equipped  for  our 
exposures,  and  the  man  of  now  would  languish 
in  the  grosser,  and  yet  mentally  less  nutritive 
atmosphere  of  the  times  of  ^Eschylus  as  well  as 
of  those  of  the  earlier  Homeric  age.  The 
Greeks  were  not  only  unscientific,  they  were 
comparatively  unspiritual.  The  most  unfortu- 
nate of  their  heroes  and  thinkers  had  but  lightly 
borne  the  burden  of  the  world,  which  is  an  in- 
ward burden  self-imposed,  not  laid  on  chiefly 
by  circumstances.  Goethe,  the  greatest  of  the 
later  moderns,  had  been  wrestling  all  his  life 
with  this  load,  had  sought  (a  seeking  which 
Homer  would  not  have  comprehended)  to  solve 
life's  mysteries.  When  he  became  so  fascinated 
with  a  Greek  as  to  take  him  up  aesthetically, 
and  attempted  to  reproject  him  on  a  poetic 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  2$ 

plane,  he  found  that  the  lungs  of  his  beautiful 
pagan  were  not  expansible  to  his,  Goethe's, 
deeper  breathings.  And,  however  much  a  poet 
may  identify  himself  with  his  adopted  person- 
age, he  must,  to  make  him  live,  breathe  into 
him  the  essence  of  his  own  moral  nature,  or  his 
attempt  ends  in  mechanism,  not  in  creation. 
Hence  Achilleis  is  a  fragment  and  a  failure,  and 
Hermann  and  Dorothea  a  heavenly  success. 

Grecian  heroes  in  the  hands  of  modern  poets 
cease  to  be  solar  and  become  lunar.  Not  from 
fresh  heat  is  their  light,  but  from  the  Sun  of 
Antiquity.  That  Sun,  when  it  was  a  flaming, 
present,  daily  centre,  was  fiery  enough  to  im- 
part a  life  which  made  them  undying  agents  in 
the  universe  of  thought,  and  a  light  from  which 
the  modern  world  still  draws  illuminating 
beams ;  but  their  elements  cannot  be  reim- 
pregnated  by  modern  inspiration.  Like  our 
earthly  moon,  they  are  cold  and  dead,  without 
atmosphere  that  can  interchange  with  ours. 
To  us  they  are  only  serviceable  in  their  primi- 
tive existence,  which  is  incapable  of  reanima- 
tion.  Only  through  the  great  poets  who  first 
bodied  them  forth  can  they  live  that  first  life 
infused  into  them  by  their  age.  In  Troilus  and 
Cressida  Shakespeare,  with  his  plastic  mastery, 
shifts  the  characters  and  events  of  Homer  from 


26  GOETHE. 

an  epic  to  a  dramatic,  and  more  than  that,  from 
a  tragic  to  a  comic,  form.  Had  Shakespeare 
made  of  Agamemnon  and  his  compeers  Shake- 
spearean Englishmen,  he  would  so  far  have 
denaturalized  them  ;  but  such  Anglicanizing  is 
in  this  case  mostly  in  the  fancy  of  the  modern 
reader.  Shakespeare  took  in  hand  the  Homeric 
heroes  to  get  some  fun  out  of  them,  leaving 
them  as  he  found  them,  except  for  a  more  dis- 
tinct and  brilliant  outline,  through  the  intellect- 
ual light  which  inevitably  fell  on  whatever  he 
gazed  at.  The  comedy  of  Troilus  and  Cressida 
is  merely  a  recasting  of  noted  Greeks  into  other 
attitudes,  with  a  sportive,  if  not  a  satiric,  pur- 
pose. 

The  Romans  are  much  nearer  to  us.  Shake- 
speare could  use  Plutarch  as  he  used  Hollinshed. 
The  Romans  whom  he  handles  he  exalts  to  the 
plane  of  poetry  without  lifting  them  out  of  his- 
tory. And  note,  that  when  he  takes  them  in 
hand  they  are  purely  historic  figures,  not  po- 
etic. The  Greeks  whom  Goethe  worked  on 
are  not  historic  but  purely  poetic  figures  ;  nay, 
are  poetic  creations,  individuals  of  whom  we 
should  know  nothing  but  for  their  poetic 
makers.  They  have  been  made  poetically  and 
are  not  to  be  re-made.  Out  of  legend  were 
they  uplifted,  and  Goethe  cannot  lift  them  any 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  2/ 

higher  ;  nor  could  even  Shakespeare,  who  could 
and  did  uplift  Coriolanus  and  Antony.  And 
this  is  even  a  weightier  consideration  than  the 
remote  foreignness .  of  Goethe's  Greeks.  They 
are  not  only  pagan  Greeks  but  mythological 
Greeks,  that  is,  Greeks  who  have  been  pro- 
moted into  the  empyrean  of  semi-deified  man- 
hood, embodying  poetically  the  quintessence 
of  ancient  Grecian  national  life  and  belief. 
Moulded  by  Beauty,  they  loom  through  the 
ages  in  heroic  stature,  the  idealized  incarna- 
tions of  a  vivid  phase  of  human  being.  It  is 
well  not  to  attempt  to  set  them  on  modern 
pedestals. 

The  only  way  in  which  the  Gods  of  Greece 
can  be  made  plastic  to  modern  creation  is  that 
the  poet,  going  behind  them  to  that  out  of 
which  they  all  spring,  —  the  mind  of  man,  — • 
shall  use  them  to  depict  the  growth  of  the  hu- 
man spirit  in  its  aesthetic  evolution  and  heaven- 
ward aspiration.  This  has  been  dene  by  Keats 
in  that  majestic  torso,  Hyperion.  In  the 
speech  of  Oceanus  is  the  key  to  the  broad, 
original,  and  splendid  conception  of  the  young 
English  giant.  Oceanus  tells  his  defeated 
brother  Titans  :  — 

"  We  fall  by  course  of  nature's  law,  not  force 
Of  thunder  or  of  Jove." 


28  GOETHE. 

"  Mark  well ! 

As  heaven  and  earth  are  fairer,  fairer  far 
Then  Chaos  and  blank  Darkness,  though  our  chiefs ; 
And  as  we  show  beyond  that  Heaven  and  Earth 
In  form  and  shape  compact  and  beautiful, 
In  will,  in  action  free,  companionship, 
And  thousand  other  signs  of  purer  life  ; 
So  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads, 
A  power  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us 
And  fated  to  excel  us,  as  we  pass 
In  glory  that  old  Darkness." 

In  Hyperion  is  bodied  forth  with  a  breadth 
and  splendor  of  style,  with  an  ideal  grandeur, 
and  at  the  same  time  with  a  human  fidelity 
and  a  flushing  warmth,  which  have  never  been 
surpassed,  the  very  spirit  of  mental  and  re- 
ligious progress.  In  studying  this  divine  frag- 
ment, written  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  one  is 
reminded  of  the  answer  of  Goethe  when  Ecker- 
man  said  to  him  that  Faust  bears  evidence  in 
every  line  of  most  careful  study  of  life  and  the 
world  :  the  reader,  said  Eckerman,  takes  it  to 
be  the  fruit  of  the  amplest  experience.  "  Yet," 
replied  Goethe,  "  had  I  not  had  the  world  in  my 
soul  from  the  beginning,  I  must  ever  have  re- 
mained blind  with  my  seeing  eyes,  and  all  ex- 
perience and  observation  would  have  been  dead 
and  unproductive.  The  light  is  there,  and  the 
colors  surround  us  ;  but  if  in  our  own  eyes  we 
bore  nothing  corresponding,  the  outward  appa- 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  2$ 

rition  would  not  avail  us."  In  this  ."  heart-lore," 
as  Coleridge  calls  it,  speaking  of  Shakespeare, 
Keats  was  most  rich. 

By  the  middle  of  May  Goethe  was  back  in 
Naples,  having  narrowly  escaped  shipwreck  on 
the  voyage  from  Palermo.  On  the  seventeenth 
he  writes  :  "  K^/st  happy  am  I  that  I  now  carry 
in  my  soul  so  clearly  and  vividly  the  great, 
beautiful,  incomparable  image  of  Sicily. 

"Now  there  is  in  the  South  no  object  which 
is  a  cause  of  longing  to  me,  as  I  returned  yes- 
terday from  Paestum. 

"  The  sea  and  the  islands  gave  me  joy  and 
grief,  and  I  come  back  satisfied. 

"  Let  me  reserve  details  until  my  return. 
Naples  is  not  a  place  for  thinking  and  remem- 
bering. This  region  I  can  now  describe  to 
you  better  than  I  did  in  my  first  letters.  I 
must  see  you  so  soon  as  possible  :  those,  will  be 
bright  days.  I  have  laid  away  a  vast  pile,  and 
need  quiet  to  work  it  off." 

The  first  week  of  June  found  him  again  in 
Rome  hard  at  work,  studying,  drawing,  com- 
posing. Towards  the  end  of  June  he  writes  to 
Weimar :  "  I  have  handsome  lodgings,  good 
servants.  Tishbein  is  going  to  Naples,  and  I 
take  possession  of  his  studio,  a  large,  cool  hall. 
When  I  am  in  your  mind,  think  of  me  as  of 


30  GOETHE. 

one  who  is  happy.  I  will  write  often,  and  thus 
we  are  and  remain  together. 

"  I  have  plenty  of  new  thoughts  and  fancies. 
I  have  refound  my  earliest  youth,  even  to 
trifles,  since  I  am  left  entirely  to  myself ;  and 
at  the  same  time  the  elevation  and  worth  of 
the  objects  around  me  carries  me  as  high  and 
far  as  only  my  later  being  could  reach.  Noth- 
ing clouds  the  atmosphere  of  my  thoughts,  ex- 
cept that  I  cannot  share  my  happiness  with 
those  I  love." 

On  the  twentieth  of  July  we  have  a  letter  of 
more  than  usual  biographical  value. 

"  I  have  been  able  in  these  days  to  discover 
two  of  my  cardinal  faults,  which  have  been  per- 
secuting and  tormenting  me  all  my  life.  One 
is,  that  I  never  could  master  the  handicraft  of 
a  thing  I  wished  to  work  at.  Thence  it  is  that 
with  so  much  natural  gift  I  have  brought  so 
little  to  pass.  The  other  fault,  closely  related 
to  this  one,  is,  that  I  never  could  give  to  a 
work  or  business  as  much  time  as  it  needed. 
As  I  possess  the  happiness  to  be  able  to  think 
and  combine  much  in  a  short  time,  a  step  by 
step  execution  is  to  me  irksome  and  unbear- 
able." 

By  the  first  fault  Goethe  had  lately  been  es- 
pecially tormented,  because  he  did  not,  perhaps 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  31 

would  not,  discover  till  now  that  for  success  in 
the  plastic  Arts  he  lacked  the  indispensable, 
though  subordinate,  mechanical  readiness.  His 
hand  could  not  learn  deftly  and  obediently  to 
give  form  to  his  conceptions,  to  the  images  in 
his  brain.  In  a  letter  written  a  few  days  before 
the  above,  he  had  become  at  last  so  fully  aware 
that  owing  to  this  manipulating  inadequacy  he 
could  not  be  a  painter,  that,  instead  of  rejoicing 
as  usual  in  his  progress,  he  puts  forth  the  mod- 
est avowal,  "  With  time  I  may  become  a  con- 
noisseur." But  in  his  true  calling,  the  literary, 
—  and  true  because  he  was  so  complete  in  his 
qualification,  —  never  was  there  poet  or  writer 
whose  genius  was  more  fully  and  ably  seconded 
by  his  talents.  Details,  facts,  words,  images, 
were  abundantly  at  his  command  ;  memory  and 
fluency  were  both  remarkable ;  his  shaping 
and  constructive  ability  was  ready  and  compe- 
tent, and  he  had  an  Artist's  eye  for  pictures 
and  proportion.  In  this,  more  favored  than 
his  contemporary,  Wordsworth,  who  lacked 
both  constructive  art  and  verbal  fluency,  and 
who  embodied  his  conceptions  by  strength  of 
will,  moved  by  a  poetic  presence  so  large  and 
vivid,  that  it  would  utter  itself.  Hence,  the 
dynamic  force,  so  much  exceeding  the  mechan- 
ical facility,  wrought  its  .effects  with  dispropor- 


32  GOETHE. 

tioned  tools  ;  which  accounts  for  the  occasional 
baldness  or  dryness  of  Wordsworth,  and  per- 
haps also,  in  some  measure,  for  a  frequent 
diamond-like  compactness  and  unsullied  spar- 
kle. Goethe's  rare  imaginative  affluence  and 
mental  fertility,  and  consequent  eagerness  to 
give  shape  to  his  inspirations,  this  it  was  that 
made  him  feel  as  an  individual  defect  what 
is  a  universal  human  incompetency.  While 
the  mind  can  take  wings  and  range  instantly 
to  the  uttermost  confines  of  stellar  space,  the 
body  has  to  use  legs,  which  are  ever  clogged 
with  earthward  gravitation.  He  who  would 
give  a  body  to  the  conceptions  of  his  mind, 
must  submit  to  the  laws  of  gravity.  For  this, 
besides  strong  inward  agitation,  strong  will  is 
needed.  And  so,  Coleridge,  lacking  this  will, 
let  many  of  his  mind's  creative  suggestions  ex- 
hale in  day-dream,  or  disperse  themselves  in 
golden  talk.  His  friend,  Allston,  similarly 
gifted  with  poetic  thought,  was  at  times  simi- 
larly relaxed  in  will,  and  strove  to  content  him- 
self with  pictures  in  the  brain.  When  mildly 
reproached  with  not  finishing  "  Belshazzar's 
Feast,"  he  answered  :  "  It  is  finished  :  I  have  it 
here "  (touching  his  forehead)  :  "  all  I  have  to 
do  is  to  transfer  it  to  canvas."  In  any  poetic 
province  that  all  is  all  of  the  work  :  the  mental 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  33 

creation  is  heavenly  play.  The  difference  be- 
tween conception  and  execution  is  the  differ- 
ence between  the  spiritual  and  the  material, 
between  the  heavenly  and  the  earthly. 

His  best  hours  in  Rome  Goethe  gave  to 
some  of  his  best  works :  Egmont,  Tasso,  Wil- 
helm  Meister,  Faust.  Towards  midsummer 
(1787)  he  determined  to  prolong  his  stay  in 
Rome  to  the  following  spring.  He  had  the 
ready  consent  of  the  Duke,  who,  besides  feel- 
ing that  Goethe  was  entitled  to  this  holiday  for 
his  past  services,  had  for  him  the  disinterested 
sympathy  of  a  true  friend,  and  knew  moreover 
the  value  of  the  work  Goethe  was  doing,  of  the 
stores  he  was  gathering.  But  Weimar's  "  so- 
ciety "  grumbled  at  his  long  absence,  and  that 
he  should  be  drawing  his  whole  salary  ;  as  if 
he  had  not  earned  it  long  ago,  and  was  not 
earning  it  now.  Yet  the  complaint  of  Weimar 
is  creditable  to  her :  she  missed  Goethe,  and 
that  showed  that  she  set  some  store  by  him. 
She  was  like  a  large,  well-appointed  steamboat 
with  a  small  engine.  The  half  of  her  motive 
force  was  .absent :  she  felt  empty. 

To  justify  himself  and  reconcile  his  friends, 

Goethe  writes  on  the  eleventh  of  August :  "  I 

remain  in  Italy  till  next  Easter.     I  cannot  just 

now  break  away  from  my  apprenticeship.     If  I 

3 


34  GOETHE. 

hold  on,  I  am  sure  that  my  friends  will  have 
cause  to  be  glad  of  it.  You  shall  have  letters 
from  me,  and  my  writings  I  will  send  ;  and  so 
you  will  have  an  image  of  me  as  of  an  absent 
live  man,  instead  of,  what  you  used  so  often  to 
complain  of  having,  a  present  dead  one."  In  a 
letter  of  the  same  date  to  another  of  his  friends 
he  says :  "  I  shall  then  have  lived  through, 
clean  finished,  an  important  epoch,  and  can 
begin  again  and  strike  in  where  is  most  urgent. 
I  feel  such  buoyancy  of  spirits,  and  am  quite 
another  man  from  what  I  was  a  year  ago." 

Goethe  lived  by  principles  and  for  principles. 
He  always  sought  the  essence  and  law  of 
things  ;  the  temporary,  the  expedient,  the  su- 
perficial, the  showy,  were  distasteful  to  him. 
Here  is  a  significant  passage  from  a  letter  of 
the  twenty-third  of  August :  "  I  am  now  so 
remote  from  the  world  and  all  worldly  things, 
that  it  seems  strange  to  me  when  I  read  a 
newspaper.  '  The  fashion  of  the  world  passeth 
away : '  I  wish  to  busy  myself  only  with  rela- 
tions that  are  permanent,  and  thus,  according 

to  the  doctrine  of ,  give  to  my  mind  its 

first  experience  of  eternity." 

While  Goethe  was  away  in  Italy,  his  friend, 
Herder,  was  superintending  an  edition  of  his 
works  in  eight  volumes,  four  of  which  had  just 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  35 

been  sent  to  him.  On  the  twenty-second  of 
September  he  writes  to  Herder  :  "  It  gives  me 
an  extraordinary  sensation  that  these  four  thin 
little  volumes,  the  results  of  half  a  life,  should 
seek  me  out  in  Rome.  I  can  truly  say,  there 

^ 

is  not  therein  a  syllable  which  has  not  been 
lived,  felt,  enjoyed,  suffered,  thought." 

In  strenuous,  various,  unintermitted  work  he 
spent  these  precious  months,  part  of  the  sum- 
mer at  Albano,  Tusculum,  castle  Gandolfo.  A 
few  sentences,  detached  from  his  letters,  will 
give  glimpses  into  his  doings,  reflections,  and 
condition.  "  Now  I  hope  that  the  time  will 
also  come  for  making  an  end.  But  the  making 
an  end  lies  very  far  off  when  one  sees  far."  — 
"  The  life  of  a  man  is  his  character."  —  "I  have 
had  opportunities  to  reflect  much  on  myself 
and  others,  on  the  world  and  history,  whereon 
I  shall  have  some  good  things  to  say,  although 
not  new.  Finally  it  will  all  be  taken  up  into 
Wilhelm  Meister"  —  "A  new  epoch  is  begin- 
ning in  me.  Through  so  much  seeing  and 
learning,  my  mind  is  so  much  expanded,  that  I 
must  now  bound  myself  by  some  single  work. 

"  The  individuality  of  a  man  is  an  extraor- 
dinary thing  ;  I  have  got  to  know  mine  well, 
from  having  had  this  past  year,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  rely  solely  on  myself,  and  on  the 


36  GOETHE. 

other,  from  having  had  to  consort  with  people 
who  are  strangers  to  me.  "  —  "  The  splendor 
of  the  greatest  works  of  art  dazzles  me  no 
more.  I  behold  them  now  with  a  genuine 
discriminative  knowledge."  —  "I  am  permitted 
to  throw  looks  into  the  nature  of  things  and 
their  relations,  which  open  to  me  an  abyss  of 
wealth."  — "  There  are  more  foreigners  here, 
with  whom  I  sometimes  go  to  galleries.  They 
remind  me  of  wasps  in  my  room,  who  fly 
against  the  windows,  mistaking  the  clear  panes 
for  air,  and  then  rebound  and  buzz  upon  the 
walls."  —  "My  brain  is  distracted  with  much 
writing,  doing,  and  thinking.  I  grow  no  wiser, 
exact  too  much  of  myself,  and  put  too  much 
upon  myself."  —  "I  am  industrious  and  happy, 
and  so  await  the  future.  Daily  it  becomes 
clearer  to  me  that  I  was  born  for  poetry,  and 
that  for  the  next  ten  years,  —  the  most  that  I 
can  count  upon  to  work,  —  I  ought  to  cultivate 
this  talent  and  yet  bring  something  good  to 
pass,  seeing  that  the  fire  of  youth  made  me 
often  successful  without  much  study." 

On  first  reading  this  last  sentence,  one  is 
surprised  that  in  Goethe  should  have  been  de- 
layed to  nearly  his  fortieth  year  the  discovery 
to  himself  of  his  poetic  vocation.  But  he  does 
not  say  that  now  for  the  first  time  this  has 


WEIMAR  AND  ITALY.  37 

become  clear  to  him  :  his  words  are,  "  D  aily 
it  becomes  clearer  to  me."  An  opinion,  long 
entertained,  is  braced  to  a  certainty.  The 
expansion  of  his  mind  through  the  beautiful 
novelties  of  Italy,  the  exhilarating  change  and 
the  freedom  and  independence  in  his  occupa- 
tions, and  as  a  consequence  of  all  this,  the 
quickening  of  his  powers,  clinched  into  a  fast 
conviction  what  he  had  often  felt.  The  con- 
sciousness of  his  poetic  gift,  instead  of  getting 
weaker  with  the  flow  of  years,  had  grown 
stronger,  giving  thus  proof  not  only  of  its  own 
genuineness  and  solidity,  but  of  the  reach  of  his 
faculties. 

In  Goethe  the  fire  of  youth  was  not  a  mere 
crackling  of  tender  twigs,  which  give  out  a 
momentary  fury  of  flame  and  are  then  quickly 
consumed,  creating  no  permanent  heat.  In 
him  this  inward  fire,  not  fed  solely  on  youthful 
impulses,  burnt  on  through  his  fourscore  years, 
because  in  his  maturing  faculties  it  found  sap- 
ful  fuel  to  nourish  it.  The  poet  who  is  not  a 
thinker  commands  but  part  of  the  strings 
of  his  wondrous  instrument,  touching  faintly 
those  which  give  to  verse  its  depth  and  sono- 
rous compass.  Thus  his  range  is  soon  ex- 
hausted, and  the  effect  of  what  he  does  is 
neither  so  incisive  nor  so  enduring.  The 
broad  survey,  the  well-proportioned  combina- 


38  GOETHE. 

tions,  the  intellectual  insights  of  thoughtful 
judgment,  not  only  empower  the  poet  to  clasp 
larger,  more  organic  themes,  they  aid  him  to 
give  character  to  even  his  minor  efforts,  to 
impart  a  more  lasting,  and  a  finer  perfume  to 
single  flowers  of  feeling  rhythmically  presented. 
Now  was  come  the  hour  of  parting.  On  the 
tenth  of  April  (1788)  Goethe  writes:  "My 
body  is  still  in  Rome,  not  my  soul.  So  soon 
as  the  resolve  was  made  to  go,  I  took  no 
further  interest  in  anything,  and  I  would  rather 
have  been  off  a  fortnight  since.  I  stay  on  for 
the  sake  of  Kayser  and  for  the  sake  of  Bury. 
The  days  pass  away,  and  I  can  do  nothing 
more,  hardly  see  anything."  His  last  days 
were  celebrated,  one  may  say,  with  a  grand, 
and  to  him  most  acceptable  pomp.  For  three 
nights  the  moon,  at  the  full,  from  the  clearest 
sky  and  through  the  calmest  air,  threw  its 
mystic  light  over  the  great  city.  "  All  that 
is  massive,"  writes  Goethe  on  the  occasion, 
"  makes  a  peculiar  impression  as  at  once  sub- 
lime and  cognizable,  and  in  such  presence  I 
summed  up  the  infinite  sum  of  my  whole  resi- 
dence in  Rome.  This,  deeply  and  largely  re- 
ceived into  an  excited  soul,  awoke  a  mood 
which  I  may  call  heroic-elegiac,  out  of  which 
an  elegy  was  urgent  to  be  embodied  in  poetic 
form." 


II. 

POETRY   AND    SCIENCE. 

WE  say  the  body  has  ceased  to  grow  when 
the  individual  has  reached  the  height  allotted 
him  by  Nature.  A  sound,  well-conditioned 
mind  never  ceases  to  grow.  Goethe's  did  not, 
and  his  memorable  last  words,  "  More  light !  " 
were  symbolical  of  the  life-long  need  of  his 
mind  ;  or,  if  not  that,  they  were  an  exclamation 
of  joy  at  the  glimpse  vouchsafed  his  soul,  ere 
yet  free  of  its  earthly  vesture,  into  that  elysium 
of  transearthly  activity  he  had  earned,  the  cer- 
tainty of  which  was  among  his  stablest  convic- 
tions. Goethe's  growth  was  of  that  solid  dy- 
namic kind  where,  the  healthy  ferment  of  nature 
being  directed  and  tempered  by  an  art  of  rare 
grasp  and  foresight,  every  stage  is  a  vantage- 
ground  for  further  gain.  Such  especially  was 
that  he  had  reached  by  his  eighteen  months  in 
Italy.  He  quitted  Rome  with  eager,  assthetic 
appetites  gratified,  with  an  enlargement  of  his 
mental  horizon  through  the  acquaintance  he 
had  made  with  a  gifted  people,  and  with  pos- 


40  GOETHE. 

sessions  which  vitalized  and  mellowed  the  at- 
mosphere of  his  thoughts. 

During  Goethe's  absence  Weimar  had  lacked 
its  animating  spirit,  had  been  abridged  of  its 
chief  privilege,  the  appropriation  of  such  a 
man.  Weimar  was  now  glad  to  have  him  back, 
healthily  glad,  as  people  are,  in  their  good 
moods,  for  the  bounties  of  Nature  ;  luxuriously 
glad,  as  a  company  is  when  its  emptiness  has 
just  been  filled  by  a  choice  repast.  But  the  as- 
piring poet,  the  self-improved  man,  the  eager 
votary  whose  finest  happiness  was  to  learn  new 
truth  and  to  produce  new  thought  and  poetry, 
he  found  little  sympathy,  little  of  that  subtler 
recognition  which,  next  to  the  delight  of  crea- 
tion, gives  the  poet  his  purest  joy.  Hear  him- 
self :  "  Thrown  back  out  of  Italy,  so  rich  in 
forms,  into  Germany,  so  barren  in  forms, 
obliged  to  exchange  cheerful  skies  for  gloomy, 
my  friends,  instead  of  comforting  me  and  draw- 
ing me  again  to  them,  drove  me  to  despair. 
My  enthusiasm  for  remote  objects,  my  suffer- 
ings, my  regrets  for  what  I  had  left  behind  me, 
seemed  to  offend  them.  They  gave  me  no 
sympathy  ;  no  one  understood  my  language." 
The  case  looks  indeed  desperate,  and  Goethe, 
without  their  support,  would  have  felt  as  empty 
as  they  had  felt  without  his  presence,  had  he 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  4! 

not  been  Goethe.  The  poet's  reliance,  and  the 
thinker's,  is  within  himself.  Besides,  as  Goethe 
had  his  uncommon  individuality,  he  should 
have  reminded  himself — and  no  doubt  did  so 
in  his  clearer  moods  —  that  his  friends  and 
neighbors  had  their  common  individuality,  and 
that  every  man  must  hold  tightly  to  his  own, 
to  himself;  for,  after  all,  a  man's  personality, 
however  small,  is  the  best  he  has.  In  his  dis- 
tress Goethe  threw  himself  passionately  into 
the  pursuit  of  the  typical  plant.  He  sought 
comfort  in  the  "  Metamorphoses  of  Plants." 
A  man  who  is  open  to  such  consolation  is  safe 
against  pity,  as  well  as  against  despondence. 
Moreover,  he  had  now  as  ever  to  support  him 
his  beautiful  principle  of  self-renunciation.  In 
1780,  while  virtual  sovereign  of  the  Duchy  of 
Weimar,  he  had  written  :  "  In  my  present  cir- 
cle of  activity  I  have  little,  almost  no  hind- 
rance from  without ;  in  myself  much.  Human 
faults  are  right  down  tape-worms  ;  you  tear  off 
some  day  a  piece,  and  the  original  stock  keeps 
its  place.  But  I  will  be  master.  None  but  he 
who  entirely  renounces  himself  is  worthy  to 
govern,  is  able  to  govern."  This  maxim,  put 
in  practice,  would  it  not  empty  Washington  in 
a  week  ? 

Besides  a  lack  of  sympathy  in  his  immediate 


42  GOETHE. 

circle  of  Weimar,  a  circle  which  himself  had 
shaped  and  instructed,  and  to  which  therefore 
he  had  a  right  to  look  for  some  apprehension 
of  the  enlarged  man,  the  now  ripened  artist, 
so  conscious  himself  on  his  return  from  Italy 
of  enlargement  and  a  finer  culture,  —  besides 
this  disappointment,  which  high  inward  re- 
sources and  his  use  of  disappointment,  to- 
gether with  the  devotion  of  the  choice  spirits 
of  Weimar,  enabled  him  soon  to  overcome,  he 
had  another,  in  the  apathy  of  the  larger  circle  of 
the  reading  public.  So  few  people  had  their 
aesthetic  eyes  sufficiently  open  to  see  what  was 
in  Iphigenia  and  Egmont,  that  the  publisher  of 
the  first  complete  edition  of  Goethe's  works 
complained  of  the  slowness  of  its  sale.  To 
aggravate  this  failure  was  the  success  of  books 
which  belonged  to  what  was  called  the  "  storm 
and  stress  "  period,  a  period  which  Goethe  him- 
self had  fostered  in  his  younger  days  with 
Werther  and  Goetz,  but  which  he  had  hoped 
the  times,  like  himself,  had  outgrown.  Of  this 
class  the  most  popular  then  were  The  Robbers 
and  Fiesko  of  Schiller,  and  the  Ardinghello  of 
Heinse.  It  was  an  imprudent  hope  on  the 
part  of  Goethe.  Does  the  larger  reading  pub- 
lic ever  outgrow  the  taste  for  what  we  now  call 
sensation-books,  for  novelties  momentarily  ex- 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  43 

citing  ?  Goethes  and  Schillers,  artists  at  once 
capable  and  conscientious,  they  outgrow  even 
the  power  of  producing  such ;  but  how  can 
they  expect  that  the  crowd  of  the  half-educated 
and  the  miseducated  should  ?  The  function  of 
Goethes  and  Schillers  —  and  they  both  ful- 
filled it  faithfully  and  efficiently  —  is  to  enlarge 
by  firm  classical  work  the  smaller  circle  of  the 
more  finely  appreciative,  enkindling  a  light 
which  shall  permanently  radiate,  and  thus 
tend  to  disperse  the  ignorance  and  crudeness 
whence  rises  the  atmosphere  whereon  shallow 
literature  is  nourished. 

Now,  when  Goethe  has  been  gradually  raised 
to  a  height  where  all,  who  have  a  look  for  such 
elevations,  behold  him  shining  among  the  half 
dozen  wealthiest  heirs  of  creative  genius,  it  is 
curious,  and  not  without  instruction,  to  note 
the  ever- renewed  battle  he  had  to  wage  against 
detraction  and  indifference,  a  battle  waged  not 
by  critical  defenses  of  the  book  attacked,  —  de- 
fenses to  which  he  never  condescended,  —  but 
by  the  publication  of  another,  and  yet  another 
work,  through  a  long  series  of  years.  Goetz  von 
Berlichingen  and  The  Sufferings  of  Young  Wer- 
ther,  his  first  ventures,  made  more  than  a  sen- 
sation, they  made  a  deep  impression,  partly  from 
the  power  and  originality  wherewith  they  gave 


44  GOETHE. 

literary  utterance  to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and 
partly  from  their  contrast  to  the  recent  artificial 
poetry  and  fiction  of  Germany,  which  wanted 
not  only  power  but  life.  Both  Goetz  and  Wer- 
tJier  were  variously  assailed,  and  among  others 
by  Lessing,  a  true  and  most  serviceable  critic, 
but  who  lacked  central  glow  fully  to  feel  their 
present  power,  and  thence  failed  of  the  sympa- 
thetic insight  (a  kind  of  literary  second  sight) 
to  recognize  the  promise  they  carried.  Nicolai 
of  Berlin  tried  to  turn  Werther  into  ridicule  ; 
the  current,  or  rather  torrent,  of  its  popularity 
swept  away  for  the  time  all  opposition.  An 
anonymous  writer  declared  that  Stella,  an  in- 
effective prose  tragedy  of  Goethe,  belonging  to 
his  first  period,  was  a  case  for  criminal  prose- 
cution. Riemer,  for  many  years  a  faithful  in- 
telligent secretary  of  Goethe,  says  that  Iphige- 
nia  and  Tasso  were  out  a  long  time  before  any 
one  took  notice  of  them.  Novalis  (the  nom  de 
plume  of  Hardenberg)  called  Goethe  a  heathen, 
and  spoke  of  Frederick  Schlegel  as  the  first  of 
living  poets  !  Later,  the  two  Schlegels,  jeal- 
ous of  Goethe,  tried  to  set  up  Tick  as  his  rival, 
which  attempt  drew  from  Goethe  that  memo- 
rable comment.  Tick,  said  Goethe  to  Ecker- 
man,  is  a  man  whose  great  merits  I  readily 
acknowledge,  but  when  the  Schlegels  "  tried  to 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  45 

raise  him  above  his  proper  place,  and  spoke  of 
him  as  my  equal,  they  made  a  mistake.  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  speak  of  myself  as  I  am  :  I  did 
not  make  myself  what  I  am.  But  I  might, 
with  as  much  propriety,  compare  myself  with 
Shakespeare,  who  also  is,  as  he  was  made,  a 
being  of  higher  order  than  myself,  to  whom  I 
must  look  up  and  pay  due  reverence." 

Wilhelm  Meister  was  sharply  criticised,  and 
but  partially  approved.  What  Wilhelm  Meister 
means  people  are  yet  puzzled  to  know,  which  is 
surely  excusable,  seeing  that  its  author  himself 
hardly  knew.  He  said  to  Eckerman  in  1825  : 
"Wilhelm  Meister  is  a  most  incalculable  pro- 
duction :  I  myself  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
the  key.  The  critic  seeks  a  central  point, 
which  is,  in  truth,  hard  to  find.  I  should  think 
a  rich  manifold  life,  brought  close  to  our  eyes, 
might  suffice,  without  any  determined  moral 
tendency  which  could  be  reasoned  upon.  But, 
if  this  is  insisted  on,  it  may  perhaps  be  found 
in  what  Frederick,  at  the  end,  says  to  the  hero  : 
'  Thou  seemst  to  me  like  Saul,  the  sort  of  Kish, 
who  went  out  to  seek  his  father's  asses,  and 
found  a  Kingdom.'  For  what  does  the  whole 
say,  but  that  man,  despite  all  his  follies  and 
errors,  led  by  a  higher  hand,  reaches  some 
worthy  aim  at  last."  And  to  the  reader  I 


46  GOETHE. 

would  say,  that  he  too,  in  seeking  a  purpose, 
may  find  within  the  covers  of  Wilhelm  Meister 
a  literary  Kingdom,  rich  in  life  and  art,  in  pic- 
tures, images,  insights,  rich  in  beauty  and  wis- 
dom, all  embodied  in  a  variegated  concourse  of 
personages,  drawn  with  a  Shakespearean  dis- 
tinctness and  buoyancy  and  truthfulness,  among 
whom  Mignon  glistens  with  that  pungent 
sparkle  which  denotes  genius  of  the  first  water. 
Scarcely  a  book  of  Goethe's  has  been  more 
subject  to  ignorant  detraction,  to  shallow  mis- 
representation than  the  Wahlverwandtshaften 
(Elective  Affinities),  the  key  to  which  is  given 
in  a  remark  of  Reinhard  of  Dresden,  who  said, 
he  wondered  that  Goethe  "  should  be  so  severe 
on  the  subject  of  marriage,  he  who  entertained 
such  free  opinions  on  other  subjects."  The 
book,  unsurpassed  among  prose  fictions  for 
aesthetic  merits,  may  be  regarded  as  a  thrilling 
protest  against  conjugal  infidelity.  The  tragic 
consequences  of  surrender  to  the  counter  cur- 
rents of  intersexual  affinities  are  depicted  with 
such  power  and  art,  that  the  capable  reader 
closes  the  book  impressed  with  the  truth,  that 
here  as  elsewhere  inviolable  and  supreme  should 
be  the  moral  law  of  self-renunciation.  Self- 
renunciation  is,  at  last,  but  the  substitution  of 
one  motive  power  for  another,  of  a  higher  for  a 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  47 

lower.  A  spiritual  and  moral  feeling,  sense  of 
justice,  of  disinterested  love,  of  dutifulness,  rises 
to  such  fullness  that  it  floods  the  mind,  and  so 
submerges  the  lower  selfish  feeling,  that  the 
self,  the  whole  self,  now  under  control  of  the 
higher  self,  is  gratified,  and  enjoys  a  liveliness 
and  happiness  of  being  only  to  be  obtained 
through  such  control.  When  the  balance  is 
struck,  no  loss,  no  sacrifice  is  registered,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  acquisition.  There  has  been 
no  violence,  no  suppression  ;  there  has  been  a 
harmonizing  through  natural  adaptation,  and 
thence  an  elevation,  a  culmination. 

Hermann  and  Dorothea 1  had  an  immediate  as 
well  as  permanent  success.  Schiller  was  de- 
lighted with  it,  and  Goethe's  habitual  detractors 
even  had  to  give  in.  Its  general  acceptability 
was  owing  largely  no  doubt  to  its  subject,  which 
is  German  and  contemporaneous,  its  scene  be- 
ing laid  in  the  Rhine-land  just  after  the  French 
Revolution.  Goethe,  in  a  letter  to  Schiller  of 
the  third  of  January,  1798,  thus  alludes  to  it 
with  that  delicate  irony  so  easy  to  hirA :  "  As 
regards  the  material,  I  have  this  once  given  the 
Germans  their  hearts'  desire,  and  they  are 
highly  satisfied.  I  am  now  considering  whether 

1  We  have  an  admirable  American  translation  of  Hermann 
ind  Dorothea  by  Ellen  Frothingham. 


48  GOETHE. 

one  could  not  on  this  plan  write  a  dramatic 
piece  which  should  be  played  on  every  stage, 
and  which  everybody  should  pronounce  admi- 
rable, without  the  author  needing  so  to  re- 
gard it". 

When  Goethe  was  at  Naples  (in  1787)  a  lady 
of  his  acquaintance  engaged  him  one  day  to  be 
at  her  house  punctually  at  five  in  the  afternoon, 
to  meet  an  Englishman  who  had  something  to 
say  to  him  about  Wcrther.  Contrary  to  his 
habit  Goethe  arrived  late,  and  as  he  was  about 
to  ring  the  bell  the  door  opened,  and  there 
stood  before  him  a  handsome  middle-aged  man 
who,  the  moment  his  eyes  fell  on  Goethe,  said, 
— "  You  are  the  author  of  Werther"  Goethe 
acknowledged  that  he  was,  and  apologized  for 
not  being  punctual.  "  I  could  not  wait  longer, 
but  what  I  wish  to  say  to  you  is  very  brief, 
and  can  be  said  as  well  here  on  the  door-mat, 
as  anywhere  else.  Whenever  I  think  of  what 
was  required  for  the  writing  of  that  book,  I  am 
filled  with  new  wonder."  Goethe  began  to  say 
something,  courteous  in  return,  when  the  Eng- 
lishman interrupted  him :  "  I  cannot  stay  a 
moment  longer :  my  desire  is  gratified,  which 
was,  to  say  this  to  yourself.  Farewell  ;  may 
you  be  prosperous  and  happy."  With  that  he 
ran  down  the  steps. 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  49 

No  one  could  have  written  Werther  but 
Goethe,  that  is,  no  one  but  the  man  who  had  it 
in  him  to  write  the  greater  pages  which  he 
afterwards  wrote ;  and  the  phrase  of  the  Eng- 
lishman applies  with  tenfold  more  emphasis  to 
Hermann  and  Dorotfea  than  to  Werther.  It 
takes  Shakespeare  to  write  one  of  Shakespeare's 
scenes  ;  but  in  a  scene  of  Macbeth  there  is  in- 
finitely more  of  Shakespeare  than  in  a  scene  of 
Love's  Labor  s  Lost.  \Yritten  twenty  years  later 
than  Werther,  after  a  growth  such  as  is  known 
only  to  sapful  genius,  Hermann  and  Dorothea 
is  the  juicy  fruit  of  the  maturity  of  the  master, 
whose  rare  faculties  had  been  cultivated  by  a 
productively  busy  manhood,  and  whose  aesthetic 
culture  had  now  received  its  decisive  lesson  by 
a  residence  of  eighteen  months  in  Italy.  In 
Hermann  and  Dorothea  there  is  a  twofold  world 
of  wealth,  emotional  wealth  and  intellectual,  a 
knowledge  as  accurate  as  it  is  varied,  handled 
with  the  tact  and  grace  which  can  only  spring 
from  a  sensibility  at  once  full  and  fine. 

The  landlord  of  an  inn,  with  his  wife  and 
son,  the  pastor  and  the  apothecary  of  a  small 
town,  where  they  all  live  in  semi -rural  quiet, 
and  a  maiden  —  these  are  the  materials  that 
are  moulded  into  a  story  which,  by  the  deep 
art  of  the  poet,  is  made  to  embrace  relations  at 

4 


50  GOETHE. 

once  the  most  vital  and  the  most  universal, 
and,  through  the  same  art,  to  present  a  rounded 
buoyant  whole,  glancing  with  light  and  shade, 
and  aglow  with  the  warmth  of  a  wise  humanity. 
By  the  transfiguring  might  of  poetic  genius, 
the  prosaic  personages  of  a  petty  secluded  town 
and  the  impulses  of  a  household  life  are  made 
to  throb  with  aesthetic  power,  are  expanded  into 
epic  magnitude.  With  so  much  poetic  truth- 
fulness is  the  story  told,  that,  simple  as  it  is,  it 
has  its  suspensions  and  surprises,  and  an  inex- 
haustible depth,  and  a  limpidity  like  that  of  the 
spring  into  which  Hermann  and  Dorothea 
gazed  together,  and  saw  reflected  therein  them- 
selves and  the  calm  blue  of  the  heaven  above 
them. 

This  poem,  one  of  the  masterpieces  of  litera- 
ture, signally  illustrates  the  power  of  Art. 
Phidias  takes  up  a  ball  of  common  clay.  His 
fingers  work  upon  it  a  few  hours,  and  then  set 
it  before  you  a  human  head,  with  the  look  of 
manhood  upon  it,  with  the  thought  and  speech 
of  manhood  within  it,  —  a  shapeless,  lifeless 
lump,  suddenly  transmuted  into  a  beaming  hu- 
man individuality.  The  persons  of  Hermann 
and  Dorothea,  when  Goethe  first  takes  them  in 
hand,  are  the  very  finite  figures,  the  cabined 
personages,  one  meets  in  any  small  town.  The 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  51 

moment  he  busies  himself  on  them,  how  they 
begin  to  grow !  Into  these  prosaic  burghers 
he  breathes  the  breath  of  poetic  life.  This 
is  the  inexplicable,  incommunicable  magic  of 
genius. 

Goethe  is  a  born  embodier  :  his  imagina- 
tions were  not  spent  on  the  abstract ;  they 
ever  sought  to  actualize  themselves  in  the  con- 
crete, in  palpable,  lively  being.  To  effect  this 
he  had  at  his  command  the  highest  artistic 
gift,  that  of  characterization  :  and  the  posses- 
sion of  the  gift  urges  him  to  its  exhibition.  In 
the  rare  power  of  setting  men  and  women  to 
talk,  move,  and  act,  so  that  you  feel  their  pres- 
ence and  personality  as  though  they  were 
audible,  visible,  tangible  creatures,  in  this  su- 
preme gift  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
Goethe  has  never  been  surpassed :  supreme  I 
call  the  gift,  because  it  implies  the  poetic  as 
crowning  faculty  to  other  ripe  faculties. 

Goethe  is  preeminently  a  naturalist.  To  all 
the  pulsations  of  Nature  his  heart  keeps  time  ; 
his  susceptibilities  have  been  tutored  by  her 
tendernesses  ;  his  perceptions  have  been  edu- 
cated by  her  infinite  differentiations  ;  his  ideals 
never  transcend  her  scale.  The  naturalness  of 
each  and  all  of  the  figures  in  Hermann  and  Dor- 
othea is  their  chief  charm,  a  charm  which  flows 


52  GOETHE. 

from  privileged  insight  into  Nature's  secrets, 
and  a  giant's  grasp  of  her  amplitudes,  com- 
bined with  subtlest  observation  of  minute  par- 
ticularities. The  pseudo-artists,  the  novelists, 
succeed  by  not  being  naturalists,  by  drawing 
one-sided  men  and  women,  by  exaggerating 
some  qualities  and  features,  thus  giving  carica- 
tures instead  of  portraits  ;  and  the  general  ac- 
ceptability of  their  work  is  due  in  part  to  this 
their  incapacity  to  present  personages  that  are 
poised  and  modest,  the  vast  majority  of  their 
readers  delighting  in  high  colors  and  partiali- 
ties, in  extravagant  situations  and  overstrained 
feelings.  A  cardinal  characteristic  of  Goethe 
is  his  love  of  proportion,  resulting  not  solely 
from  his  artistic  endowments,  but  in  large 
measure  from  equilibrium  in  his  many  gifts 
and  capabilities.  In  Goethe  the  purely  poet- 
ical does  not  predominate  as  it  does  in  Words- 
worth and  Shelley  and  Shakespeare. 

Ever  true  to  Nature,  from  the  richness  and 
fullness  of  his  aptitudes,  his  movement  has  an 
unfailing  security,  while  the  judgment  of  the 
practiced  thinker  is  deepened  by  the  poet's 
illuminating  vision  ;  and  to  Hermann  and  Doro- 
thea especially  is  imparted  the  mellowness  of  a 
broad,  genial  humor,  so  genial  as  to  involve  the 
whole  in  a  cheerful  light.  Each  personage, 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  53 

compact  and  rounded,  glistens  with  individual 
life,  and,  through  the  constructive  and  unifying 
power  of  the  aesthetic  master,  through  the  skill 
and  firmness  of  his  affiliations,  they  are  all 
bound  into  melodious  harmony. 

Hermann  and  Dorothea  is  the  most  exquisite 
of  Idyls,  expanded  to  epic  stature  by  breadth 
of  treatment  and  poetic  significance,  and  to 
epic  grandeur  by  the  French  Revolution,  out 
of  which  it  is  in  part  wrought,  a  principal  fig- 
ure, and  through  her  the  chief  incident,  to  the 
quiet  burgher  story,  being  furnished  by  that 
great  upheaval,  which  makes  a  dark  lurid  back- 
ground to  the  picture.  The  declaration  of 
Hermann  that,  — 

"  Good  men  are  surely  oft  warned  by  a  spirit  from  heaven," 

we  may  take  as  a  recognition  of  the  super- 
earthly  element,  the  distinct  recognition  of 
which  is  deemed  essential  to  epic  complete- 
ness. 

Goethe's  autobiography  was  published  late 
in  his  life,  under  the  title,  Ans  meinem  Leben  : 
DicJittmg  und  Wahrheit  ("  Out  of  my  Life  : 
Poetry  and  Truth  ").  The  second  title  might  be 
better  rendered  by  "  Imagination  and  Fact,"  for 
the  meaning  is,  that  in  such  a  work  the  auto- 
biographer's  imagination  will  unavoidably  color 


54  GOETHE. 

many  statements,  and  so  there  will  be  a  mix- 
ture of  facts  with  things  imaginatively  repre- 
sented. The  book  was  so  caviled  at,  especially 
the  title,  that  Goethe,  soon  after  its  publication, 
wrote  in  1813  to  a  friend:  "The  Germans 
have  this  peculiarity,  that  they  cannot  take  a 
thing  as  it  is  given  to  them.  Do  you  present 
them  the  handle  of  the  knife,  they  find  that  it 
is  not  sharp  :  do  you  offer  them  the  point,  they 
complain  of  being  wounded."  The  Germans, 
with  all  their  culture,  are  —  like  Frenchmen, 
Englishmen,  Americans,  the  most  of  them, 
even  those  of  good  education  —  one-sided,  and 
such  can  but  partially  see  a  many-sided  man 
like  Goethe.  Hence  by  some  he  is  reproached 
with  being  too  exclusively  intellectual,  by  oth- 
ers with  being  too  sentimental.  Some  even 
call  him  cold  !  There  are  people  who,  if  a  por- 
trait in  profile  is  shown  them,  will  begin  to 
pity  the  original  for  having  but  one  eye. 

There  were  critics,  half  critics  (whole  critics 
are  rare),  who  could  not,  or  would  not,  see  the 
fresh  and  rare  merits  of  the  collection  of  short 
poems  in  twelve  books  called  West-oestlicher 
Divan  (West-eastern  Divan),  written  also  late 
in  life.  Its  origin  is  peculiarly  characteristic 
of  Goethe.  In  1813  the  translation,  by  von 
Hammer,  of  the  Poems  of  Hafiz  fell  into  his 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  55 

hands,  and  by  these  he  was  so  affected  that,  in 
his  own  words,  he  "  had  to  become  productive, 
in  order  not  to  be  overwhelmed  by  them." 
The  strong  effect  was  much  owing  to  his  sym- 
pathy, especially  now  in  his  autumnal  life,  with 
the  serenity  and  cheerfulness  and  wisdom  of 
the  famous  Persian  Poet.  In  1819,  just  after 
the  publication  of  the  Divan,  Goethe,  then  in 
his  seventieth  year,  sending  a  copy  to  Zelter, 
says  :  "  The  Mahometan  religion,  manners, 
mythology,  give  scope  to  a  poetry  such  as  suits 
my  years.  Unconditional  resignation  to  the 
unfathomable  will  of  God,  cheerful  survey  of 
the  restless  bustle  on  the  earth,  ever  repeating 
itself  in  circling  and  spiral  movement,  love,  in- 
clination swaying  between  two  worlds,  all  the 
real  made  clear,  resolving  itself  symbolically  — 
what  more  would  the  grandpapa  have  ?  " 

The  poems  of  Hafiz  moved  Goethe  to  em- 
body in  verse  with  an  Oriental  coloring  much 
that  lay  stored  and  ripened  within  him,  waiting 
just  for  this  stimulus.  Goethe  did  not  need 
threescore  years  to  learn  wisdom :  he  began 
manhood  wise :  whoever  does  not  so  begin  will 
not  end  wise  even  at  fourscore.  But  life  and 
experience,  so  deep  and  manifold  for  him,  mel- 
lowed his  judgments  and  enlarged  their  field. 
Now  was  the  natural  time  for  him  to  do  what, 


56  GOETHE. 

to  be  sure,  he  had  always  been  doing,  but  to  do 
it  with  more  directness  and  more  zest,  that  is, 
to  array  wisdom  in  poetry.  From  the  pages  of 
the  Divan  is  more  apparent  than  elsewhere 
that  Goethe  is  the  more  wise  for  being  a  poet, 
and  the  more  of  a  poet  for  being  wise.  Wise 
words  can  with  sincerity  proceed  but  from  one 
capable  of  wise  conduct ;  for  wisdom  may  be 
described  as  the  transfusion  of  spiritual  princi- 
ples into  daily  practice.  A  knowing  man  is 
one  who  cleverly  accommodates  his  doings  to 
the  demands  of  expediency  :  a  wise  man  is  one 
who  makes  his  bearing  towards  his  fellow-men 
adjust  itself  to  the  sweep  of  the  broadest  eter- 
nal principles.  In  discerning  and  baffling  the 
designs  and  petty  aims  of  expediency  in  others, 
Goethe  was  a  knowing  man  :  in  his  own  ends 
and  means  he  was  a  wise  man. 

The  Divan,  lifted  on  the  gradually  self-refin- 
ing judgments  of  criticism,  has  now  taken  its 
lasting  place  among  the  choice  creations  of 
poetic  Art,  uniquely  enjoyed  because,  under  a 
capitivating  mask  of  Orientalism,  it  combines 
solidity  with  grace,  depth  with  lightness,  wis- 
dom with  wit.  By  some  of  Goethe's  contempo- 
raries it  was  disparaged  as  unpatriotic  and  far- 
fetched :  unpatriotic,  because  begun  during  the 
war  of  liberation  in  1813  ;  far-fetched,  on  ac- 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  57 

count  of  its  Eastern  dress.  But  Goethe  was 
usually  much  in  advance  of  his  public,  and  the 
appreciation  of  him  to-day  has  been  reached 
through  the  culture  which  his  own  writings  con- 
tributed the  most  to  give.  To  Goethe  public  ap- 
proval was  grateful,  but  not  necessary  as  a  spur 
to  production.  He  wrote  because  he  must  write  : 
he  yielded  to  a  strong  inward  motion :  when 
his  mind  was  full  it  overran  in  fresh  streams  of 
verse  or  prose.  His  whole  life's  experience 
taught  him  that  the  first  utterances  about  new 
poetry  are  little  apt  to  flow  from  sympathy 
chastened  by  judgment,  and  are  often  the  voice 
of  ignorance  envenomed  by  envy,  of  semi-cul- 
ture perverted  by  conceit.  Goethe  wrote  for 
himself  and  his  friends.  He  makes  Tasso  say  : 

"  Who  does  not  see  the  world  in  his  few  friends 
Deserves  not  that  the  world  should  hear  of  him." 

Among  Goethe's  cardinal  qualities  was  his 
capacity  for  and  joy  in  admiration.  To  discover 
excellence  is  the  best  function  of  criticism. 
Culture  will  not  make  a  clever  man  a  good 
critic,  unless  he  have  the  gift  of  admiration. 
Only  he  who  can  admire  has  the  right  to  cen- 
sure ;  for,  imperfection  or  defect  implying  a 
perfection  or  wholeness,  the  critic  must  first  be 
able  to  perceive  this  wholeness  before  he  can 
discern  wherein  it  has  been  fallen  short  of. 


58  GOETHE. 

This  principle  is  the  life  of  ethics  as  of  aesthet- 
ics. The  man  who  values  not  the  good  and 
great  is  no  judge  of  conduct.  False  admira- 
tions abound  in  this  as  in  other  provinces,  and 
false  admirations  are  another  source  of  bad 
criticism.  Good  criticism  involves  admiration 
enlightened  by  cultivated  intellect,  and  Goethe, 
himself  the  prince  of  critics,  is  the  best  mas- 
ter one  can  go  to,  to  learn  how  to  judge 
of  Goethe's  proficiencies  and  felicities,  and 
through  them  of  his  failings.  The  range  of 
his  aesthetic  performances,  and  of  his  successes, 
is  wider  than  that  of  any  worker  in  literature. 
He  is  not  less  abundant  in  comment  than  crea- 
tiveness.  By  precept  as  well  as  by  practice  he 
gives  the  highest  lessons  in  the  art  of  literary 
appreciation.  Among  the  various  genera  of 
poetic  forms  he  leaps  from  peak  to  peak  with  a 
winged  ease  which  surprises  the  critic  into  ad- 
miration. Let  the  student,  who  is  equipped  for 
such  alterations  of  atmosphere,  read  IpJiigenia 
after  finishing  Hermann  and  Dorothea,  or  pass 
from  Werther  to  the  Divan,  and  consider  the 
span  of  the  life-arc,  both  in  time  and  mental 
orbit,  which  unites  these  two,  or  lay  down 
Tasso  to  take  up  Faust,  or,  after  an  hour  spent 
over  the  finest  lyrics  in  the  world,  enjoy  a  score 
of  pages  in  the  Metamorphoses  of  Plants. 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  59 

Genius  will  not  be  circumscribed.  But 
Goethe  could  not  escape  the  law  of  life,  that 
the  spirit  breathed  into  the  poet  from  his 
infancy  to  his  manhood  is  the  one  he  must 
breathe  out  again,  and  with  the  more  force  and 
veracity  the  higher  and  the  more  passionate  is 
his  poetic  mood.  With  all  his  admiration  of 
Grecian  Art  he  could  not  write  a  Greek  trag- 
edy, —  that  was  a  psychical  impossibility ;  and 
so,  to  appease  his  yearning,  he  snatched  from 
the  Greeks  one  of  their  most  illustrious  hero- 
ines, and  made  a  Christian  of  her. 

Was  the  original  Iphigenia,  the  daughter  of 
Agamemnon,  so  large  and  lofty  an  individual- 
ity that  she  belongs  not  to  Greece  but  to  man- 
kind ?  By  no  means.  But  Goethe  re-created 
her,  and  in  so  doing  he  necessarily  unpaganized 
her.  Besides  belonging  to  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries,  Goethe  was  personally  too 
deeply  dyed  with  tenderness,  too  saturated  with 
the  milk  of  human  kindness,  not  to  make  the 
divine  principle  of  love  dominate  in  a  conjunc- 
tion like  that  in  Tauris  between  Thoas  and 
Iphigenia.  To  strike  him  with  horror,  and 
thus  oblige  him  to  desist  from  his  purpose  of 
making  her  his  bride,  Goethe's  Iphigenia  says 
to  King  Thoas  :  — 

"  Listen  :  of  Tantalus'  dark  breed  am  I." 


6O  GOETHE. 

Then  is  evolved  to  his  ears  the  series  of  ter- 
rific crimes  committed  by  her  ancestors,  crimes 
whose  bloody  ruthlessness  and  ferocious  egotism 
make  a  very  matrix  for  tragedy  ;  in  this  case, 
tragedy  so  tangled,  that  the  sole  issue  out  of  it 
is  by  heaping  death  upon  death.  But  all  this 
lurid  gloom  forms  but  a  remote  background 
for  the  scene.  Goethe's  Iphigenia  has  not  in 
her  an  artery,  not  the  finest  capillary,  pulsating 
with  this  turbid,  guilty  blood.  She  is  a  beau- 
tifully spiritual  impersonation,  and  illustrates, 
as  though  she  were  designed  for  the  purpose, 
the  contrast  between  the  grim  fatalism  of 
Greece  and  the  fair  possibilities  of  a  genuinely 
Christian  control.  During  her  long  services  as 
priestess  in  Diana's  temple  she  has  made  Thoas 
forego  his  cruel  custom  of  the  sacrifice  ot 
strangers  who  happened  upon  his  shore,  and 
finally  that  of  her  brother  Orestes  and  his 
friend  Pylades,  with  whom  he  allows  her  to  de- 
part in  peace,  after  a  concluding  scene  of  sur- 
passing beauty,  deeply  imbued  with  purest 
sentiment.  Goethe's  work  is  an  exquisite  mod- 
ern poem  (written  by  a  poet  of  these  latter 
times,  it  could  not  be  exquisite  were  it  not 
modern  in  spirit)  wrought  out  of  ancient  mate- 
rials into  the  form  of  a  drama.  In  its  outpour- 
ings of  passionate  personal  feelings  it  is  su- 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  6 1 

perbly  lyrical,  in  its  narrative  passages  grandly 
epic.  If  it  be  rather  a  lyric  expansion  in  dia- 
logue than  a  drama,  it  is  nevertheless  a  gen- 
uine and  a  classic  poem,  classic  not  because  its 
theme  and  form  are  ancient,  but  through  the 
chasteness  of  its  execution,  through  the  fine 
fitness  of  language  to  thought  and  sentiment 
ranging  on  a  high  plane  of  mental  endeavor  in 
a  warm  atmosphere.  In  Iphigenia  Goethe  ful- 
fills the  requirements  which  Milton  put  into  a 
parenthesis,  that  poetry  should  be  "  simple,  sen- 
suous, and  passionate  ;  "  and  he  fulfills  other 
and  higher  requirements.  Out  of  these  Gre- 
cian materials  Goethe,  by  the  potency  of  his 
art,  has  wrought  a  genuine  poem ;  nevertheless, 
to  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  daughter  of  Aga- 
memnon, of  Iphigenia  in  Tauris,  the  senti- 
ments she  here  utters,  and  to  make  her  rule 
herself  by  them,  is  an  historical  solecism. 

Tasso  and  Iphigenia,  because  they  belong  to 
the  same  period  of  Goethe's  poetic  activity,  are 
generally  ranked  together.  Like  IpJiigenia, 
Tasso  is  its  own  justification.  Its  inspiration 
is  equal  to  its  art.  It  is  full  of  the  life  of  char- 
acter, full  of  wisdom,  of  intuitional  beamings, 
and  of  golden  sheaves  of  experience,  full  of  in- 
tellectual and  sentimental  delicacies  and  brill- 
iancies. But  it  is  not  a  drama  proper  ;  it  is  a 


62  GOETHE. 

poem  in  dialogue,  the  dialogue  being  divided 
into  acts  instead  of  chapters.  It  is  an  evolution 
of  feeling  in  words,  and  in  deeds  too,  but  it  has 
not,  any  more  than  Iphigenia,  the  lively,  con- 
tinuous, booming  action  which  drama  implies. 
Its  dominant  tone  being  lyrical,  it  has  no  dra- 
matic shock  of  incidents,  no  shifting  interac- 
tion of  conflicting  personages,  each  striving  for, 
and  striking  for  his  own  ;  but  it  has  a  deep  and 
captivating  interplay  of  strong  emotions,  the 
shock  of  inward  conflicts,  the  overflow  of  pas- 
sionate feeling,  wrought  into  scenes  vivid  and 
varied,  and  stamped  with  beauty  of  form.  One 
would  not  have  it  other  than  it  is,  being,  as  it 
is,  an  original  poem  shaped  into  clear,  warm 
utterance. 

In  Tasso  there  are  only  five  personages.  To 
draw  the  two  principal,  the  antagonistic  char- 
acters, Tasso  and  Antonio,  Goethe  split  himself 
into  two.  Without  the  poetic  gift  and  the  hu- 
mane feelings  which  chasten  it,  Goethe  were 
an  Antonio  ;  without  the  keen,  practical  under- 
standing, he  were  a  Tasso. 

On  his  return  to  Weimar  from  Italy  Goethe 
was  relieved  from  the  heavier  ministerial  du- 
ties. Control  over  the  Scientific  and  Artistic 
Institutions  he  retained,  over  Museums,  Mines, 
Libraries,  the  Botanical  Garden  in  Jena,  and 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  63 

the  theatre.  Before  leaving  Italy  he  wrote  to 
the  Duke  expressing  a  wish  such  as  only  a 
Goethe  could  entertain,  characteristic  alike  of 
his  breadth  and  his  dutifulness :  "  I  should 
like,  immediately  on  my  return,  to  travel  all 
through  your  territory  as  a  foreigner,  so  that  I 
might  be  able  to  form  a  judgment  with  fresh 
eyes,  practiced  in  the  survey  of  other  countries. 
After  my  fashion  I  should  get  a  new  image  of 
the  whole,  attain  a  complete  conception,  and 
thus  qualify  myself,  as  it  were  anew,  for  any 
kind  of  service  which,  your  kindness  or  your 
confidence  might  require  of  me." 

A  man  of  genius,  to  be  himself,  to  have  joy 
in  his  being,  must  submit  him  to  the  demands, 
even  to  the  delicate  hints,  of  genius.  For  his 
own  peace'  sake  he  must  strive,  through  what- 
ever obstacles,  to  satisfy  his  mental  yearnings. 
Most  fortunate  is  he  whom,  thus  genially  pos- 
sessed, outward  circumstances  favor,  instead  of 
hampering  and  obstructing.  Thus  favored  was 
Goethe.  As  minister  and  chief  member  of  the 
court  of  Weimar,  he  had  at  times  to  go  with 
and  to  do  with  others,  when  he  would  rather 
have  been  self-wrapped  and  secluded.  But  this 
was  for  him  a  small  forfeiture,  enjoying  as  he 
did  the  full  sympathy,  as  well  as  the  consider- 
ate friendship,  of  the  Duke.  In  our  day  we 


64  GOETHE. 

have  seen  the  illustrious  Humboldt  bound  by 
much  coarser  cords  to  the  military,  prosaic 
court  of  Berlin.  Moreover,  the  poet  and  the 
man  of  science,  Goethe  not  only  carried  his 
better  self  always  with  him,  he  put  the  rudder 
into  the  hands  of  this  better  self,  even  when 
conditions  seemed  adverse.  We  saw  him  on 
the  voyage  between  Naples  and  Palermo  fasten 
upon  his  Tasso.  In  the  summer  of  1790  he 
had  to  attend  the  Duke  to  a  military  camp  in 
Silesia  ;  but  here,  instead  of  wasting  his  time 
on  princes  and  field  marshals,  he  gave  up  the 
whole  of  him  to  Comparative  Anatomy.  Amid 
the  sounds  of  trumpets,  the  stir  of  reviews  and 
marchings,  in  the  focus  of  a  gay,  showy,  ani- 
mated, socially  elevated  circle,  he  lived  the  life 
of  a  hermit.  His  devotion  to  this  department 
of  Natural  Science  dated  its  first  impulse  from 
Venice,  where,  walking  one  day  on  the  Lido, 
he  fell  upon  a  sheep's  skull,  "  so  favorably  cleft," 
he  relates,  "  that  it  not  only  confirmed  me  in  a 
discovery  I  had  already  made,  namely,  that  the 
bones  of  the  skull  are  transformed  vertebrae," 
but  pointed  to  other  new  and  valuable  observa- 
tions, and  strengthened  his  belief,  founded  on 
experience,  "  that  Nature  has  no  secret  which 
she  does  not  somewhere  lay  bare  before  the 
eyes  of  the  attentive  observer."  The  attentive 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  6$ 

observer  here  implies  one  furnished  in  a  more 
than  ordinary  degree  with  what  may  be  called 
the  scientific  faculty  par  excellence,  that  high 
intellectual  gift,  namely,  which  enables  the  be- 
holder to  seize  analogies.  This  gift,  be  it  here 
said,  united  with  his  imitative  instinct,  con- 
tributed largely  to  the  remarkable  elasticity  of 
Goethe's  style. 

One  of  Goethe's  enduring  delights  was,  to 
watch  and  hearken  to  sleepless,  life-bubbling 
Nature,  learning  her  benignant  laws,  noting  her 
prodigalities,  how  her  procedures  are  always  as 
logical  as  they  are  beautiful.  And  so  he  too 
had  a  right  to  say,  as  his  great  countryman 
Kepler  said  :  "  I  think  the  thoughts  of  God." 
I  stated  just  now  that  Goethe  was  fortunate 
in  his  surroundings  ;  and  that  surely  he  was, 
after  full  allowance  has  been  made  for  what 
himself  did  towards  creating  and  moulding 
them  ;  for  in  Goethe  there  was  so  much  life 
that  he  awakened  and  attracted  life.  He  was 
a  centre  about  which  congenial  men  liked  to 
move.  Thus  he  had  as  correspondents  men 
of  science  and  men  of  letters,  and  early  friends 
and  later  friends  and  men  of  the  world,  whom 
his  genius  and  character  drew  to  him  and  held 
to  him,  and  to  whom  he  could  outpour  his  best 
without  restraint  and  be  sure  of  interest  and 
5 


66  GOETHE. 

recognition.  But  besides  this  he  had  near  him 
(a  purely  fortuitous  proximity)  the  Duchess 
Louise,  the  wife  of  his  chief,  to  whom,  as  well 
as  to  the  Duke  himself,  he  could  impart  his 
profoundest  or  subtlest  suggestions  and  con- 
clusions, assured,  through  intimate  knowledge 
of  her,  that  they  would  be  hospitably  received. 
In  1786  he  writes  to  the  Duchess:  "The 
smallest  product  of  Nature  has  the  round  of  its 
consummation  complete  within  itself;  and  I 
only  need  eyes  to  see  that  it  is  so,  to  discover 
all  its  conditions,  and  to  feel  sure  that  within  a 
small  circle  there  lies  inclosed  an  entire,  real 
existence.  A  work  of  Art,  on  the  contrary, 
has  its  consummation  without  itself;  the  best 
of  it  is  in  the  idea  of  the  Artist,  which  he 
seldom  or  never  reaches  ;  all  the  rest  is  in 
certain  accepted  laws  which,  to  be  sure,  are 
derived  from  the  nature  of  Art  and  handicraft, 
but  which  are  still  not  so  easy  to  comprehend 
and  decipher  as  the  laws  of  living  Nature.  As 
to  works  of  Art  much  is  tradition  ;  works  of 
Nature  are  always  like  a  freshly  uttered  word 
of  God."  Happy  Duchess,  who  had  such  a 
poet-friend  !  Happy  poet,  who,  in  the  wife  of 
his  sovereign,  had  such  a  woman-friend  ! 

At   the  opening   of  his  literary   career,  be- 
fore he  quitted  Frankfort  for  Weimar,  Goethe 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  67 

planned  Egmont,  working  on  it  at  intervals 
and  finishing  it  in  Italy.  As  in  Iphigenia  and 
Tasso,  there  is  in  Egmont  an  unfolding  of 
character  and  events  from  within,  by  quiet 
talk,  rather  than  by  diversified,  oppugnant  ac- 
tion. The  reader  has  a  masterly  picture  of  the 
state  of  Brussels  just  before  and  after  the 
arrival  of  Alva,  of  the  conflicting  interests, 
parties,  personages,  but  not  presented  through 
deeds  and  lively  collisions.  To  be  effective  as 
dramas,  historical  subjects  should  cover  some 
space,  so  as  to  have  occurrences  enough  to 
give  room  for  variety  of  outward  movement, 
the  dramatist  artfully  compressing  a  succession 
of  events  into  one  frame,  foreshortening  them 
for  dramatic  unity  and  picturesque  effects. 
Egmont,  like  Goethe's  other  higher  works,  is 
admirable  as  a  poetic  creation  (poetic  though 
Egmont  is  written  in  prose)  ;  but  as  a  drama 
it  does  not  keep  that  balance  between  the  out- 
ward and  inward,  the  keeping  of  which  is  one 
of  the  secrets  of  Shakespeare's  mastership. 
Goethe's  tragedies  are  too  inward  for  dramatic 
effectiveness ;  the  will  is  not  put  forth  muscu- 
larly  enough,  one  might  say.  For  the  drama, 
—  not  for  narrative  prose  fiction,  —  his  person- 
ages lack  sinew.  One  need  for  a  dramatic 
success  is  condensation  ;  characteristics  being 


68  GOETHE. 

evolved  gradually,  it  may  be,  but,  in  the  midst 
of  profluent  action,  breaking  through  in  acts  as 
well  as  smiting  lines. 

The  lyrical  proclivity  of  Goethe  is  exhibited 
in  the  intrusion  of  Claerchen  into  this  play. 
Here  is  an  historical  tragedy,  wrought  out  of 
one  of  the  most 'momentous  and  most  tragic 
crises  in  European  annals,  where  all  hearts  are 
stirred  to  their  depths  by  strongest  passions, 
passions  personal,  political,  religious  ;  and  now 
the  protagonist  of  this  great  epoch,  whose 
whole  soul  should  be  engrossed  with  his  high 
duties  and  difficulties,  him  the  dramatist  drags 
aside,  and  makes  him  the  hero  of  a  love  epi- 
sode, and  a  fictitious  love  episode,  diverting 
attention  from  the  rapid  current  of  tumultuous 
minatory  movements,  to  fix  it  upon  Claerchen. 
Is  not  this  as  false  in  Art  as  it  is  untrue  to 
history?  Goethe  executed  all  love-stories  so 
admirably,  and  through  them  the  characters  in- 
volved, that  his  power  and  partiality  tempted 
him  to  bring  into  Egmont  a  tender  element,  as 
extraneous  as  it  is  unseasonable.  Owing  too  to 
this,  Egmont  as  an  historical  personage  is  not 
fully  drawn.  His  brave,  heedless  side  is  given 
in  the  following  sentences,  which  translate 
themselves  readily  into  verse  : 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  69 

"Already  dead  is  he  who  only  lives 
For  his  dear  safety's  sake." 

"  As  if  by  unseen  spirits  whipped,  speed  on 
Time's  sun-steeds  with  the  light  car  of  our  fate." 

Claerchen,  whose  presence  is  a  blotch  on  an 
historic  tragedy,  turns  out  to  be  its  chief 
beauty,  through  the  perfectness  of  her  presen- 
tation. In  her  song  Goethe  does  what  is  the 
essence  of  all  song :  he  takes  the  soul  of  a  feel- 
ing and  flings  it  up  to  the  surface  in  a  glitter- 
ing, transparent  spray.  It  is  a  foam  snatched 
from  the  heave  of  a  deep  ocean,  through  whose 
momentary  crest  a  heavenly  light  is  made  to 
flash.  The  following  translation  will  at  least 
help  the  reader  to  form  a  notion  of  this  famous 
song. 

"Joyful 
And  doleful, 

With  thoughto'erful  brain ; 
Yearning 
And  burning 
In  mutable  pain ; 
Heaven-high  shouting, 
To  death  now  depressed  ; 
Happy  alone 
Is  the  soul  by  love  blessed." 

Thirty  years  ago  I  knew  at  Pisa,  among 
other  Professors  in  the  University  there,  one 
of  the  youngest  and  ablest,  Silvestro  Centofanti. 
Signor  Centofanti  lectured  on  the  history  of 


yo  GOETHE. 

philosophy,  and  at  times  with  a  warm  and 
sonorous  eloquence  that  thrilled  his  audience. 
In  treating  of  the  Ionian  philosophers  he  had 
opportunities,  of  which  he  availed  himself 
copiously,  to  hold  before  his  hearers  the  price- 
less blessings  of  freedom,  and,  by  the  example 
of  the  Greeks,  to  inculcate  what  sacrifices  a 
people  should  make  for  national  independence  ; 
thus  nobly  using  his  chair  to  instill  into  the 
youth  of  Italy  principles  of  duty  and  patriot- 
ism. He  was  one  of  those  thoughtful,  high- 
souled  Italians  who  boldly  sowed  the  precious 
seed  which  has  since  yielded  so  rich  a  harvest. 
The  manly,  fervid  nature  of  Alfieri,  and  his 
patriotic  spirit,  besides  his  great  literary  services 
to  Italy,  so  won  the  consonant  heart  of  Signor 
Centofanti,  that  he  had  just  published  an  edi- 
tion of  the  tragedies  and  the  autobiography  of 
Alfieri.  In  a  critical  introduction,  describing 
the  literary  procedure  of  the  Italian  dramatist, 
he  states  that  each  of  his  tragedies  Alfieri  first 
wrote  out  fully  in  prose,  and  then  versified  it, 
thus  translating,  as  it  were,  the  whole,  line  for 
line,  from  prose  into  verse.  I  said  to  the  Pro- 
fessor, "  Is  that  the  way  to  write  poetry  ? "  I 
repeat  the  question  here.  Could  one  in  the 
mood,  the  visionary  mood,  in  which  alone 
poetry  can  be  written,  write  in  prose  what  is 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.        .  71 

worthy  of  rhythmic  verse  ?  If  he  puts  down  in 
prose  what  is '  thus  worthy,  is  it  not  solely  be- 
cause he  is  not  enkindled,  cannot  be  enkindled, 
to  the  due  temperature  for  poetry  ?  Is  Alfieri 
a  poet  in  the  truest,  closest  sense  of  the  word  ? 
Is  he  one  who,  through  imaginative  intensity 
of  grasp,  from  inward  vivacity  and  fullness,  re- 
creates, and  freshly  projects,  in  forms  of  beauty, 
scenes  and  passions  and  personages  ?  Was  his 
not  rather  an  energetic,  fervent,  aspiring  na- 
ture, with  more  of  passion  than  emotion,  of  a 
poetic  temperament,  but  with  rhetorical  rather 
than  poetic  gifts  ? 

Goethe  wrote  Ipkigenia  and  Tasso  first  in 
prose.  But  why  did  he  so  ?  Because,  he  says 
at  the  time,  "  Our  prosody  is  in  the  greatest 
uncertainty.  It  is  striking  that  in  our  language 
we  have  few  syllables  which  are  decidedly  short 
or  long :  the  others  one  uses  according  to  taste 
or  caprice."  He  found  on  trial  that  he  could 
soon  get  such  mastery  over  the  iambic  blank 
verse,  the  best  dramatic  medium,  as  to  give  it 
the  stability  he  required  ;  and  no  doubt  he  was 
urged  to  the  trial  by  the  poetic  mood  which 
the  loving,  beaming,  presence  of  two  such 
themes  awakened.  The. themes  are  both,  as 
subjects  for  drama,  limited  in  action  and  the 
number  of  participant  personages.  This  is 


72  GOETHE. 

even  the  case  with  Egmont.  The  drama  pre- 
fers a  wider  field  and  more  numerous -agents, 
in  order  to  give  scope  to  various  movement 
and  accumulating  action.  The  absence  of  this 
scope  in  Goethe's  dramas  proves  a  lyrical  pre- 
ponderance in  the  flow  of  his  aesthetic  currents. 
In  depicting  persons  and  passions  his  genius 
delighted  more  in  the  inward  than  the  outward. 
With  all  his  full  interior  springs  of  passion  and 
sensibility,  he  brought  to  his  aesthetic  work 
some  of  the  calm  contemplativeness  of  the  man 
of  science.  At  the  same  time,  his  characteriza- 
tion—  that  touchstone,  on  one  side,  of  dra- 
matic competency  —  is,  in  his  best  delinea- 
tions, not  even  surpassed  by  Shakespeare.  In 
Goethe's  pictures  and  impersonations  there  is 
an  outfilled,  vivid  roundness,  a  buoyancy  and 
healthiness,  which  are  due  to  the  arterial  vital- 
ity and  the  manifoldness  of"  his  faculties,  all 
made  elastic  and  malleable  by  the  warmth  of 
his  sensibility  to  the  beautiful.  Shakespeare's 
preeminence  comes  mainly  from  the  oceanic 
occult  movement  beneath,  an  incessant  heave 
of  power  which  imparts  itself  to  all  the  multitu- 
dinous agitation  of  the  surface,  —  an  infinite 
latent  motion,  which  underlies  and  penetrates 
the  definite,  diversified,  external  play.  In  Goethe 
this  heave  is  only  less  powerful  than  in  Shake- 
speare. 


POETRY  AND  SCIENCE.  73 

Like  Shakespeare's,  Goethe's  knowledge 
came  to  him  at  first  hand,  through  the  warm, 
active,  unintermitted  commerce  of  his  heart  and 
intellect  with  the  worlds  of  fact  and  feeling. 
He  was  always  growing,  because  his  resources 
of  sensibility  were  inexhaustible.  Men,  women, 
girls,  boys,  babies,  woods,  flowers,  fields,  light 
and  shade,  storm  and  calm,  sea  and  land,  sor- 
row and  joy,  war  and  peace,  pictures  and 
statues,  all  the  spectacles  and  mutations  of  life, 
its  triumphs,  cares,  disappointments,  successes, 
all  of  minute,  infinite  being  taught  him  inces- 
santly and  abundantly,  because  he  saw  it  not 
with  the  cold  eye  of  the  intellect  alone,  but  also 
with  the  glowing  eye  of  feeling.  Of  Goethe  it 
may  be  said,  that  he  enjoyed  all  sights  and  sen- 
sations, the  poet  accepting  even  the  painful  as 
pearls  snatched  from  the  heart  of  the  man  to 
be  thrown  into  the  casket  of  the  Artist.  He 
somewhere  says  that  a  man  cannot  enter  a 
room  where  hangs  an  engraving,  and  go  out 
with  his  mind  in  the  state  it  was  when  he  came 
in.  What  may  be  the  effect  of  sorrow  he  has 
told  in  those  four  simple  great  lines  which  were 
a  consolation  to  the  Queen  Louise  of  Prussia 
in  her  crushing  afflictions  : 

Wer  nie  sein  brod  mit  traenen  ass, 
Und  weinend  auf  dem  bette  sass 


74  GOETHE. 

Die  langen  kummervollen  naechte, 

Der  kennt  euch  nicht,  ihr  himlischen  Maechte. 

Which   may  be   literally  translated   without 
much  loss :  — 

Who  ne'er  his  bread  with  tear-drops  ate, 
And  weeping  on  his  bedside  sate 
Through  the  long  night's  grief-laden  hours, 
He  knows  you  not,  ye  heavenly  Powers. 


III. 

SCHILLER. 

FROM  what  he  beheld  and  went  through 
Goethe  carried  away  so  much,  because  he 
brought  with  him  so  much.  We  have  seen  how 
large  and  varied  was  his  experience  in  the  first 
ten  years  at  Weimar,  what  stores  he  gathered 
in  Italy.  I  have  now  to  record  a  quickening 
modification  of  his  being  through  contact  with 
one  man,  a  contact  which  took  place  at  an 
age  when  most  men  are  past  modification ; 
for  Goethe  was  forty-five  (Schiller  thirty-five) 
at  the  beginning  of  their  correspondence  and 
friendship. 

For  several  years  after  Goethe's  return  from 
Italy,  he  avoided  Schiller.  Schiller  was  yet  in 
a  stage  of  literary  development  and  activity 
which  Goethe  had  so  outgrown  that  on  his  own 
products  of  that  term  he  looked,  especially  since 
his  aesthetic  enlargement  in  Italy,  with  distaste, 
almost  with  aversion.  In  vain  their  friends 
tried  to  bring  them  together.  Schiller,  on  a 
visit  to  Weimar,  lodged  near  Goethe  :  Goethe 


76  GOETHE. 

did  not  seek  or  see  him.  The  first  time  they 
met,  and  for  several  years  the  only  time,  was 
in  1788  at  Rudolstadt,  in  general  company,  a 
few  weeks  after  Goethe's  arrival  from  Rome. 
Schiller,  in  a  letter  to  Koerner,  thus  describes 
Goethe  as  he  appeared  to  him  on  that  occa- 
sion :  — 

"  I  can  at  last  tell  you  something  about 
Goethe.  I  passed  nearly  the  whole  of  last  Sun- 
day in  his  society,  on  which  day  he  paid  us  a 
visit  with  Madame  Herder,  Frau  v.  Stein,  and 
Frau  v.  S.  His  appearance  greatly  lessened 
the  idea  I  had  conceived  from  hearsay  of  his 
imposing  and  handsome  person.  He  is  of 
middle  height,  and  looks  and  walks  stiff.  His 
countenance  is  not  open,  but  he  has  a  beaming 
eye.  The  expression  of  his  countenance  is 
serious,  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  benevolent 
and  kind.  He  has  brown  hair,  and  appears 
older  than  I  should  say  he  really  is.  His  voice 
is  exceedingly  pleasing,  and  his  conversation 
flowing,  lively,  and  amusing.  It  is  a  pleasure 
to  listen  to  him ;  and  when  he  is  in  a  happy 
mood,  which  he  was  on  this  occasion,  he  is 
fond  of  talking,  and  takes  an  interest  in  what 
he  says.  Our  acquaintance  was  soon  made, 
without  the  slightest  formality  on  either  side. 
The  company  was  too  numerous,  and  all  were 


SCHILLER.  77 

too  eager  to  catch  a  word  from  him,  for  me  to 
be  much  alone  with  him,  or  to  allow  me  to 
speak  with  him  on  other  than  commonplace 
topics 

"Altogether,  the  high  opinion  I  had  con- 
ceived of  him  is  not  in  the  least  degree  les- 
sened by  his  personal  acquaintance ;  but  I 
doubt  if  we  shall  ever  draw  very  close  to  each 
other.  Many  things  that  are  still  of  interest 
to  me,  that  I  have  still  to  wish  and  to  hope  for, 
have  had  their  day  with  him.  He  is  so  far 
ahead  of  me,  —  not  so  much  in  years  as  in  ex- 
perience of  the  world  and  self-development,  — 
that  we  cannot  meet  on  the  road.  His  whole 
life  from  the  very  beginning  has  run  in  a  con- 
trary direction  to  mine  :  his  world  is  not  my 
world :  our  notions  on  some  points  are  dia- 
metrically opposed.  But  from  so  short  an  in- 
terview it  is  hard  to  form  a  judgment.  Time 
will  show." 

Six  years  after  this  interview,  at  the  close  of 
a  lecture  on  Natural  Science  in  Jena,  happen- 
ing to  come  out  together,  they  engaged  in  talk 
about  the  lecture.  Goethe  was  pleased  to  hear 
Schiller  declare  that  this  piecemeal  treatment 
of  Science  is  not  the  way  to  make  it  attractive  ; 
whereupon  Goethe  said  that  there  might  be  a 
way  to  present  Nature,  not  cut  up  and  isolated, 


78  GOETHE. 

but  living  and  actively  striving  out  of  the  whole 
into  the  parts.  Schiller  expressed  a  doubt  that 
such  a  presentation  could  spring  out  of  experi- 
ment. By  this  time  they  had  reached  Schiller's 
door.  Interest  in  the  conversation  carried 
Goethe  in.  There  with  animation  he  explained 
his  theory  of  the  metamorphoses  of  plants,  and 
with  a  pen  made  a  typical  plant  appear  before 
Schiller's  eyes.  With  the  liveliest  interest 
Schiller  listened  and  looked  ;  but  at  last,  shak- 
ing his  head,  he  said :  "  That  is  no  result  of 
experiment,  that  is  an  idea."  Goethe  was  stag- 
gered, but  collecting  himself  he  rejoined  :  "  I 
ought  to  be  very  thankful  that  I  have  ideas 
without  knowing  it,  and  can  even  see  them  with 
my  eyes."  Schiller  was  assuredly  right :  that 
out  of  which  sprang  the  typical  plant  was  an 
idea,  if  ever  there  was  one.  Nay  more,  with  all 
his  capacity  for  minute,  patient  observation  and 
experiment,  Goethe  would  never  have  written, 
or  thought  of  writing,  or  been  able  to  write,  a 
page  of  his  Metamorphoses,  had  he  not  been 
far  more  capable  than  most  men  of  such  ideas. 
But  the  ice  was  broken.  In  the  warmth  of 
close  personal  contact  thawed  suddenly  the 
coldness  which  had  kept  them  so  long  apart. 
Describing,  long  afterwards,  the  interview, 
Goethe  said  :  "  The  attractive  power  of  Schil- 


SCHILLER.  79 

ler  was  great :  he  held  fast  whoever  came  near 
him.  His  wife,  whom  from  childhood  I  had 
known  and  loved,  did  gladly  her  part  to  bind  us 
together ;  our  friends  on  both  sides  were  re- 
joiced ;  and  so,  through  the  never-to-be-recon- 
ciled conflict  between  object  and  subject,  was 
sealed  a  union  that  has  remained  unbroken,  and 
has  wrought  much  good  for  us  and  for  others." 
Goethe  is  called  a  realist  and  Schiller  an 
idealist  ;  but  in  this  very  matter  of  the  typical 
plant  Goethe  unconsciously  shows  himself  an 
idealist.  In  one  of  his  first  letters  to  Goethe, 
that  remarkable  fourth  letter  in  which  he  sets 
forth  with  so  much  distinctness  and  penetra- 
tion his,  Goethe's,  mental  characteristics,  Schil- 
ler speaks  of  his  intuitional  power,  that  is,  his 
power  of  insight  independent  of  experience  and 
collected  details.  In  fact,  this  commanding 
genial  power  of  intuition  it  was  which  enlarged 
and  vivified  Goethe's  capacity  of  experience. 
Some  men,  not  without  pretension  and  merit, 
have  a  limited  capacity  of  experience  ;  they  do 
not  keep  learning,  still  less  do  they  continue 
ever  purifying  their  knowledge  ;  and  this 
limited  capacity  of  experience  and  progression 
arises  in  great  measure  from  their  incapacity 
of  ideas.  Goethe  had  a  great  capacity  of  ex- 
perience, but  it  was  his  capacity  of  ideas  that 
made  him  generative,  expansive,  original. 


80  GOETHE. 

Goethe  was  both  subjective  and  objective :  he 
was  an  idealist  as  well  as  a  realist.  The  only 
safe  idealist  is  your  thorough  realist,  thorough, 
from  having  so  many  and  such  clear  intellectual 
inlets,  that  realities  stream  upon  him  in  all  their 
variety  and  fullness,  upbearing  his  idealism  on 
a  firm  body  of  facts.  Your  mere  realist  is  no 
realist ;  for  realities  cannot  be  seen  just  as  they 
are  without  some  light  from  the  ideal,  that  is, 
from  the  imaginative  heaven  within.  On  the 
other  hand,  your  mere  idealist  is  no  idealist ; 
for  his  imaginations  are  not  valid,  idealism  need- 
ing to  be  colored  by  injections  from  the  earth's 
arteries,  needing  to  be  fortified  by  the  stabili- 
ties of  tried  possibility. 

The  much  that  Goethe  saw  and  partook  of 
he  could  appropriate  and  assimilate  because 
he  felt  so  profoundly.  His  countless  relations 
with  the  world  of  men  and  of  things  never  con- 
fused or  tyrannized  over  him,  because  he  ruled 
all  his  resources  from  the  throne  of  thought. 
He  was  ever  drawing  magnetism  out  of  the 
earth,  to  mingle  with  the  positive  current  flow- 
ing from  his  great  interior  battery,  largely  ad- 
justed out  of  reason  and  sensibility.  The  col- 
lision it  was  of  these  two  magnetisms,  touched 
by  the  spark  of  the  beautiful,  which  in  science 
as  well  as  in  poetry  flamed  before  the  world 


SCHILLER.  8 1 

delineations  and  discoveries  that  are  a  beauty 
and  a  benefaction  to  his  fellow-men  forever. 

On  the  nineteenth  of  June,  1794,  three  or  four 
weeks  after  their  meeting  and  talk  in  Jena, 
Schiller  writes  to  Goethe  inviting  him,  in  the 
most  cordial  and  flattering  terms,  to  be  one  of 
the  contributors  to  a  new  literary  monthly  Jour- 
nal, The  Hours,  just  about  to  be  established, 
of  which  Schiller  was  to  be  Editor.  In  a  note 
Goethe  accepts  in  similar  terms  the  invitation. 
Thus  was  begun  a  correspondence  which  was 
actively  kept  up  for  ten  of  the  busiest,  most 
productive  years  of  both,  ending  only  with  the 
life  of  Schiller,  and  which  is  the  richest  episto- 
lary treasure  in  literature.  In  his  note,  Goethe 
says  :  "  A  closer  connection  with  such  sterling 
men  as  the  undertakers  of  this  work  will,  I  am 
sure,  give  new  life  to  much  that  is  now  stagnant 
within  me."  And  just  this  The  Hours  did 
for  Goethe.  What  his  friendship  with  Schiller 
did  for  him  he  states  four  years  later  in  a  letter 
to  Schiller,  which  stands  nearly  midway  be- 
tween the  beginning  and  the  end  of  their  cor- 
respondence, being  numbered  401,  and  the  last, 
dated  April  24th,  1805,  from  Schiller  to  Goethe, 
being  971.  "The  friendly  bond  between  us," 
writes  Goethe  in  1 798,  "  has  already  been  of 
great  service  to  us,  and  I  hope  that  it  will  con- 
6 


82  GOETHE. 

tinue  to  be  so.  If  I  have  been  to  you  as  the 
representative  of  many  objects,  you  have  drawn 
me  from  the  too  close  observation  of  outward 
things  and  their  relations,  and  thrown  me  back 
upon  myself.  You  have  taught  me  to  look 
more  discerningly  at  the  manysidedness  of  the 
inner  man  ;  you  have  obtained  for  me  a  second 
youth,  and  made  me  a  poet  again,  which  I  had 
as  good  as  ceased  to  be." 

A  cordial  relation  and  correspondence  being 
established  between  them,  they  sought  each 
other,  and  had  long  discussions  on  the  high 
topics  that  were  the  mental  aliment  of  both. 
After  a  visit  of  Goethe  to  Jena,  Schiller  writes 
on  the  twenty-third  of  August,  1 794 :  "  On 
much  in  regard  to  which  I  could  not  obtain 
perfect  harmony  within  myself,  the  contempla- 
tion of  your  mind  (die  Anschauung  Ihres 
Geistes),  —  for  thus  I  must  call  the  full  impres- 
sion of  your  ideas  upon  me,  —  has  kindled  in 
me  a  new  light.  I  needed  the  object,  the  body, 
to  many  speculative  ideas,  and  you  have  put 
me  on  the  track  of  it.  Your  observing  look, 
which  rests  so  calmly  and  clearly  on  all  things, 
keeps  you  from  getting  into  the  by-roads  into 
which  speculation,  as  well  as  an  arbitrary  im- 
agination, obeying  only  itself,  so  easily  goes 
astray.  In  your  correct  intuition  lies  all  that 


SCHILLER.  83 

analysis  so  laboriously  seeks,  and  only  because 
it  lies  in  you  as  a  whole,  is  your  own  wealth 
concealed  from  yourself;  for,  alas  !  we  only 
know  that  which  we  can  take  to  pieces." 

-  The  fifth  letter,  dated  August  2/th,  is  from 
Goethe  to  Schiller,  acknowledging  the  preced- 
ing one.  I  copy  nearly  the  whole  of  it,  it  is  so 
autobiographical. 

"  For  my  birthday,  which  falls  in  this  week, 
no  more  acceptable  present  could  have  come  to 
me  than  your  letter,  in  which,  with  a  friendly 
hand,  you  give  the  sum  of  my  existence,  and 
through  your  sympathy,  encourage  me  to  a 
more  assiduous  and  active  use  of  my  powers. 

"  Pure  enjoyment  and  real  benefit  can  only 
be  reciprocal,  and  it  will  give  me  pleasure  to 
unfold  to  you  at  leisure  what  my  intercourse 
with  you  has  done  for  me,  —  how  I,  too,  regard 
it  as  making  an  epoch  in  my  existence, — and 
how  content  I  am  to  have  gone  on  my  way 
without  particular  encouragement,  as  it  now 
appears  as  if  we,  after  a  so  unexpected  meet- 
ing, are  to  proceed  forward  together.  I  have 
always  prized  the  honest  and  so  rare  earnest- 
ness that  is  visible  in  all  that  you  have  written 
and  done,  and  I  may  now  expect  to  be  made 
acquainted  by  yourself  with  the  progress  of 
your  mind,  particularly  in  the  last  few  years. 


84  GOETHE. 

Shall  we  have  once  made  clear  to  each  other 
the  points  to  which  we  have  thus  far  attained, 
we  shall  then  be  the  better  able,  without  inter- 
ruption, to  work  on  together. 

"  All  that  relates  to  me,  and  is  in  me,  I  will 
gladly  impart.  For,  as  I  feel  very  sensibly 
that  my  undertaking  far  exceeds  the  measure 
of  the  faculties  of  one  earthly  life,  I  would  wish 
to  depose  much  with  you,  and  thereby  give  it 
not  only  endurance,  hut  vitality. 

"  Of  how  great  profit  will  be  to  me  a  closer 
intercourse  with  you,  yourself  will  soon  per- 
ceive, when,  on  a  near  acquaintance,  you  dis- 
cover in  me  a  kind  of  obscurity  and  holding 
back,  which  I  cannot  entirely  master,  notwith- 
standing I  am  perfectly  conscious  of  it.  Like 
phenomena  are  often  found  in  our  nature,  to 
whose  government-  we  unwillingly  yield,  when 
she  is  not  too  tyrannical. 

"  I  hope  soon  to  pass  some  time  with  you, 
and  then  we  will  talk  over  much  together." 

In  dealing  with  these  precious  letters  the 
difficulty  is  not  to  choose  but  to  abstain. 
Here  is  an  invitation  from  Goethe  to  Schiller, 
making  part  of  a  letter,  dated  September  4th, 
1794. 

".And  here  I  have  a  proposal  to  make  to  you. 
Next  week  the  court  goes  to  Eisenach,  and 


SCHILLER.  85 

for  a  fortnight  I  shall  be  alone  and  independ- 
ent, as  I  have  not  a  prospect  of  being  soon 
again.  Will  you  not,  during  this  period,  visit 
me,  and  lodge  with  me  ?  You  would  be  able 
to  occupy  yourself  in  quiet  with  any  kind  of 
work".  At  convenient  hours  we  should  talk  to- 
gether, see  such  friends  as  were  the  most  con- 
genial to  us,  and  would  part  not  without  profit. 
You  should  live  entirely  after  your  own  fash- 
ion, and  be  as  much  as  possible  as  if  you  were 
in  your  own  house.  In  this  way  I  should  be 
able  to  show  you  what  is  most  valuable  in  my 
literary  store,  and  many  threads  of  connection 
would  be  joined  between  us.  After  the  four- 
teenth you  will  find  me  free,  and  ready  to  re- 
ceive you. 

"  Until  then  I  will  reserve  much  that  I  have 
to  say,  and  in  the  mean  time  I  wish  you  all 
happiness." 

Here  is  Schiller's  answer,  at  the  opening  of 
a  long  letter. 

"JENA,  >]th  September,  1794. 

"  With  pleasure  I  accept  your  kind  invita- 
tion, but  with  the  earnest  request,  that  in*  no 
particular  of  your  household  arrangements  will 
you  make  any  change  with  reference  to  me  :  for, 
alas  !  my  spasms  oblige  me  commonly  to  devote 
the  whole  morning  to  sleep,  because  they  let 


86  GOETHE. 

me  have  no  rest  at  night,  and,  indeed,  I  am 
never  well  enough  to  be  able  in  a  whole  day  to 
count  upon  a  fixed  hour.  I  must,  therefore, 
beg  that  I  may  be  in  your  house  as  one  who 
is  not  to  be  cared  for,  so  that  by  being  thus 
left  to  myself,  I  may  escape  the  embarrassment 
of  making  any  one  else  dependent  upon  my 
state  of  health.  The  arrangement  which  would 
make  any  other  man  comfortable,  is  my  worst 
enemy ;  for,  the  being  obliged  to  do  a  certain 
thing  at  a  particular  time  is  sure  to  render  me 
unfit  to  do  it. 

"  Pardon  these  preliminaries,  which  I  must 
first  settle,  in  order  to  make  my  staying  with 
you  even  possible.  I  will  request  the  poor  lib- 
erty of  being  permitted  to  be  an  invalid  in  your 
house. 

"  I  was  just  about  to  propose  to  you  to  pay 
me  a  visit  when  I  received  your  invitation. 
My  wife  has  gone  with  our  child  to  spend 
three  weeks  at  RudolstadJ,  to  avoid  the  small- 
pox with  which  Mr.  Humboldt  has  had  his 
children  inoculated.  I  am  quite  alone,  and 
could  lodge  you  very  comfortably.  Except 
Humboldt,  I  seldom  see  any  one,  and  for  a 
long  time  no  metaphysics  have  crossed  my 
threshold." 


SCHILLER.  87 

The  interest  of  these  letters  lies  as  much  in 
the  exhibition  of  the  cordial  and  courteous 
familiarity  between  two  such  men,  as  in  the 
abundance  and  brightness  of  the  good  things 
that  are  interchanged  on  the  high  themes 
which  first  drew  them  together,  the  living  in 
and  for  which  made  the  chief  joy  of  their  lives. 
Poets  and  thinkers  both,  earnest,  active,  con- 
scientious literary  workers,  both,  at  the  open- 
ing of  their  correspondence  and  friendship,  in- 
tent on  giving  character  to  a  new  journal,  the 
choice  topics  in  art,  literature,  philosophy,  in 
addition  to  piquant  personalities  and  witty 
thrusts,  naturally  come  often  up  in  their  let- 
ters, to  be  touched  with  epistolary  buoyancy 
and  grace,  but  at  the  same  time  with  the  firm- 
ness and  judgment  of  sterling  criticism. 

The  following  brief  note  from  Goethe  shows 
how  thoroughly  he  did  his  work. 

"  For  the  Advocate,  who  here  appears,  I  wish 
a  good  reception. 

"  Have  the  goodness  to  send  it  soon  back  to 
me,  because  I  want  to  go  through  it  several 
times  more  for  the  sake  of  the  style. 

"  I  am  working  everything  out  of  the  way 
that  might  hinder  me  from  soon  enjoying  and 
instructing  myself  by  your  side. 

"WEIMAR,  ityh  March,  1795." 


88  GOETHE. 

With  easy  fullness  and  certain  grace  flowers 
tip  with  light  a  whole  zone  of  stalks  in  spring ; 
but  what  avast,  mysterious,  constructive  might 
lies  behind  this  facile  beauty !  So  with  shin- 
ing thoughts  in  the  extemporaneous  utter- 
ances of  genial  minds  :  they  come  forth  with  a 
happy  readiness  which  diverts  us  from  think- 
ing of  the  divine  depths  whence  only  can  such 
be  upthrown. 

The  temptation  to  make  many  long  extracts 
I  withstand,  as  not  suited  to  the  compass  of 
the  present  volume,  and  select  a  few  gems  of 
criticism  or  comment,  whose  rays  reveal  the 
interiors  whence  they  issue.  Goethe  thus 
closes  a  letter  of  May  i4th,  1795  :  "Have  you 
seen  the  treatise  on  style  in  the  plastic  arts  in 
the  April  number  of  the  Mercury  ?  That  on 
which  we  are  all  agreed  is  very  well  said  ;  but, 
that  the  writer  should  assert  that  genius,  which 
exists  in  the  philosopher  prior  to  all  experi- 
ence, does  not  pull  him  and  warn  him  when 
with  imperfect  experience  he  sits  down  to 
prostitute  himself!" 

On  sending  Schiller  a  distich,  Goethe  says  : 
"  How  serious  every  trifle  becomes  the  mo- 
ment one  treats  it  according  to  the  principles 
of  Art,  I  have  on  this  occasion  again  experi- 
enced." 


SCHILLER.  89 

To  Lawrence  Stark,  a  novel  by  Engel,  very 
current  just  then,  Schiller  gives  a  loud  slap : 
"  It  has  the  merit  of  having  a  light  tone,  but  it 
is  rather  the  lightness  of  the  hollow  than-  of  the 
beautiful.  When  minds  like  E.'s  wish  to  be 
true  and  naif  they  run  such  danger  of  being 
flat.  But,  most  divine  flatness  !  that  is  the 
very  thing  that  recommends  them." 

Both  were  dissatisfied  with  what  Herder  said 
of  German  Literature  in  a  volume  just  pub- 
lished. Goethe  concludes  a  paragraph  on  the 
volume  with  words  which  can  hardly  be  too 
often  reprinted :  "  It  may  be  owing  to  my 
mood  at  the  time,  but  it  seems  to  me  that,  as 
well  in  treating  of  writings  as  of  actions,  unless 
one  speaks  with  a  loving  sympathy,  a  certain 
partial  enthusiasm,  the  result  is  so  defective  as 
to  have  very  little  value.  Pleasure,  delight, 
sympathy  in  things,  is  all  that  is  real,  and  that 
reproduces  reality  :  all  else  is  'empty  and  in 
vain." 

At  the  close  of  a  letter  of  July  Qth,  1796,  we 
.  get  a  cheering  look  into  Goethe's  heart  and 
household  :  "  Greet  your  dear  wife.  Could  you 
not,  in  case  of  an  increase  of  your  family,  send 
Charles  over  here  ?  Augustus  would  give  him 
a  hearty  welcome,  and  he  would  be  very  happy 
in  the  company  of  the  many  children  that  as- 
semble at  my  house  and  garden.  Farewell." 


9O  GOETHE. 

One  of  those  base  and  malignant  natures, 
whom  the  facilities  of  the  press  enable  to  aim 
their  dirt  (it  never  reaches  its  aim)  at  the 
worthy  and  the  exalted,  had  written  about 
Goethe  some  personality  so  low  that  Schiller 
calls  it  "filthy."  Goethe  thus  ends  a  short, 
calm  comment  thereon  :  "  How  little  this  kind 
of  people  even  dream  in  what  an  inaccessible 
castle  that  man  dwells  who  is  always  in  earnest 
in  regard  to  himself  and  everything  around 
him." 

The  union  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  in  literary 
as  well  as  personal  friendship,  amicable,  animat- 
ing, reciprocally  serviceable  rivals,  being  united 
at  the  top  through  their  aspirations,  —  this 
union,  while  it  quickened  their  productiveness, 
stimulated  detraction.  Prosaic,  incompetent 
writers  (whose  name  is  always  legion),  envious 
because  incompetent,  presumptuous  because 
prosaic,  could  ill  brook  the  growing  predomi- 
nance of  two  such  men.  In  journals,  in  pam- 
phlets and  other  forms,  the  two  were  pertina- 
ciously assailed.  Against  such  attacks  the  best 
weapon  is  witty  ridicule  ;  and  so,  in  the  shape 
of  what  they  called  Xenia,  —  a  term  borrowed 
from  Martial,  —  Goethe  and  Schiller  launched 
at  their  detractors  showers  of  epigrams,  pinning 
to  the  wall  with  a  distich  many  a  scribbling 


SCHILLER.  91 

wasp.  In  the  German  literary  world  of  that 
day  the  Xenia  made  a  lively  stir.  Of  the  epis- 
tolary comments  which  the  two  friends  inter- 
changed on  these  assailants  I  make  room  for 
the  following,  from  Goethe  in  December,  1 796  : 
"  To  be  candid,  however,  the  conduct  of  these 
people  is  altogether  what  I  wish  ;  for  it  is  a 
policy  not  sufficiently  known  and  practiced, 
that  whoever  makes  pretensions  to  any  posthu- 
mous fame,  should  force  his  contemporaries  to 
out  with  whatever  they  have  against  him.  The 
impression  made  thereby  he  always  effaces  by 
his  presence,  his  life  and  activity.  Of  what 
avail  was  it  to  many  a  discreet,  meritorious  and 
clever  man,  whom  I  have  outlived,  that,  through 
incredible  compliance,  passiveness,  flattery,  ad- 
vancing and  retiring,  he  obtained  a  tolerable 
reputation  during  his  life  ?  The  instant  he  is 
dead,  the  Devil's  attorney  plants  himself  by  the 
side  of  the  corpse,  and  the  angel,  who  is  there 
to  be  his  counterpart,  wears  mostly  a  very  sor- 
rowful visage." 

The  two  brothers  Schlegel,  Augustus  Wil- 
liam and  Frederick,  did  good  service  in  their 
day  to  literature,  and  A.  W.'s  History  of  Dra- 
matic Literature  (written,  however,  long  after 
this  period)  has  deservedly  survived.  They 
were  both  prone  to  pretend  beyond  their  de- 


92  GOETHE. 

serts,  an  amusing  instance  of  which  pretension 
is  related  in  Moore's  Diary.  At  a  dinner  at 
the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne's,  in  London,  in 
1832,  on  the  death  of  Goethe  being  announced, 
and  some  one  saying  that  Germany  had  now 
no  great  poet  left,  A.  W.  Schlegel  exclaimed : 
"I  am  a  German  Poet !  "  In  May,  1797,  Schil- 
ler thus  writes  of  Frederick  Schlegel :  "  Have 
you  read  Schlegel's  critique  on  Schlosser?  It 
is,  to  be  sure,  in  its  fundamental  principles,  not 
untrue,  but  the  evil  intent  and  party  spirit  are 
much  too  apparent  in  it.  This  Mr.  Frederick 
Schlegel  is  really  getting  too  bad.  He  lately 
told  Humboldt  that  he  had  reviewed  Agnes  in 
the  journal  Germany,  and  very  severely  too  ; 
but  that  now,  since  he  hears  that  it  is  not  by 
you,  he  regrets  that  he  handled  it  so  roughly. 
So  the  coxcomb  thinks  it  his  duty  to  take  care 
that  your  taste  fall  not  off.  And  this  impu- 
dence is  coupled  with  such  ignorance  and  shal- 
lowness,  that  he  really  took  Agnes  to  be  your 
work. 

"  The  gossip  about  the  Xenia  continues.  I 
am  constantly  meeting  with  a  new  title  of  a 
book,  wherein  an  essay  or  something  similar  is 
announced  against  the  Xenia.  Lately  I  found 
an  article  against  them  in  a  journal  called  An- 
nals of  Suffering  Humanity" 


SCHILLER.  93 

Writing  to  Goethe's  friend  Meyer  in  July, 
1797,  Schiller  thus  speaks  of  Hermann  and 
Dorothea  and  its  author  :  "  Nor  have  we  in  the 
mean  time  been  inactive,  as  you  know,  and 
least  of  all  our  friend,  who  in  the  last  few  years 
has  really  surpassed  himself.  His  epic  poem 
you  have  read :  you  will  admit  that  it  is  the 
pinnacle  of  his  and  all  our  modern  art.  I  have 
seen  it  grow  up,  and  have  wondered  almost  as 
much  at  the  manner  of  its  growth  as  at  the 
completed  work.  Whilst  the  rest  of  us  are 
obliged  painfully  to  collect,  in  order  slowly  to 
bring  forth  anything  passable,  he  has  but  gen- 
tly to  shake  the  tree,  in  order  to  have  fall  to 
him  the  most  beautiful  fruit,  ripe  and  heavy.  It 
is  incredible  with  what  ease  he  now  reaps  upon 
himself  the  fruits  of  a  well-bestowed  life  and 
a  persistent  culture ;  how  significant  and  sure 
now  all  his  steps  are  ;  how  the  clearness  as  to 
himself  and  as  to  objects,  preserves  him  from 
every  idle  effort  and  beating  about." 

From  Frankfort  Goethe  writes  in  August  of 
the  same  year  :  "  It  struck  me  as  very  remark- 
able what  the  peculiar  character  of  the  public 
in  a  large  city  is.  It  lives  in  an  incessant  tu- 
mult of  getting  and  spending,  and  that  which 
we  call  high  mood  can  neither  be  produced  nor 
communicated.  All  pleasures,  even  the  the- 


94  GOETHE. 

atre,  are  intended  only  to  distract  (zerstreuen}, 
and  the  great  fondness  of  the  reading  public 
for  journals  and  novels  arises  precisely  thence, 
that  the  former  always,  and  the  latter  mostly, 
bring  distraction  to  distraction. 

"  I  even  think  I  have  remarked  a  kind  of  shy- 
ness towards  poetic  productions,  or,  at  least,  in 
so  far  as  they  are  poetic,  which,  from  these 
causes,  appears  to  me  quite  natural.  Poetry 
requires,  nay,  exacts,  collectedness  ;  it  isolates 
man  against  his  will  ;  it  forces  itself  on  the  at- 
tention repeatedly,  and  is  ^n  the  broad  world 
(not  to  say  the  great  world)  as  inconvenient  as 
a  faithful  mistress." 

The  important  critical  judgment  uttered  in  the 
subjoined  extract,  condemns  some  of  Goethe's 
own  dramatic  practice,  and  no  doubt  his  in- 
fringement of  a  fundamental  principle  helped 
to  make  its  truth  so  clear  to  him.  The  principle 
is,  that  a  subject  which  is  not  capable  of  lifting 
itself  into  rhythm  is  not  a  fit  subject  for  dra- 
matic treatment.  It  may  be  that  he  lays  down 
the  law  too  strictly,  and  that  comedy  and  farce 
can  be  genuine  in  prose.  But  he  is  backed  by 
Shakespeare,  who,  as  if  to  authorize  and  em- 
phasize the  principle,  besides  making  verse 
predominate  in  most  of  his  comedies,  intro- 
duces it  into  several  scenes  even  of  the  Merry 


SCHILLER.  95 

Wives  of  Windsor.  The  mere  prose  drama 
creeps  along  the  ground  among  the  individuali- 
ties of  a  subject,  the  bustling  crowd  of  details, 
weaving  its  texture  out  of  a  succession  of  occa- 
sions. The  poetic  drama,  dealing  with  effects 
and  causes,  not  with  mere  occasions,  converts 
many  particulars  into  a  few  generalities.  By 
extracting  the  essence  out  of  much,  the  spirit 
out  of  a  pile  of  material,  it  rises  to  the  plane 
of  poetry.  Thus  the  truly  poetic  drama  be- 
comes representative,  unlimited,  unconsciously 
symbolical.  The  letter  of  Goethe  is  so  alive 
with  sound  criticism,  as  sound  and  in  much  as 
applicable  to-day  as  in  1797,  that  I  give  a  large 
portion  of  it.  This  letter  is  dated  November 

2$,  1797- 

"  For  letter  and  package,  which  I  have  this 
moment  received,  I  thank  you  cordially,  and 
only  say  in  haste  and  .  impromptu,  that  I  am 
not  only  of  your  opinion,  but  even  go  much 
further.  Whatever  is  poetical  should  be  treated 
rhythmically.  That  is  my  conviction,  and  the 
belief,  that  by  degrees  a  poetical  prose  might 
be  introduced,  only  shows  that  the  difference 
between  prose  and  poetry  is  entirely  lost  sight 
of.  It  is  no  better  than  if  some  one  should 
order  to  be  made  in  his  park  a  lake  that  could 
be  drained,  and  the  landscape-gardener  endeav- 


g6  GOETHE. 

ored  to  execute  the  order  by  forming  a  marsh. 
What  is  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other  is  for 
amateurs  and  dabblers,  just  .as  marshes  are  for 
amphibious  animals.  In  the  mean  time  the  evil 
has  become  so  great  in  Germany,  that  no  one 
any  longer  sees  it  ;  nay,  like  that  scrofulous 
people  that  is  told  of,  they  rather  look  upon  a 
healthily  made  neck  as  a  punishment  from  God. 
All  dramatic  works  (and  perhaps  comedy  and 
farce  generally)  should  be  rhythmical,  and  we 
should  then  sooner  see  who  could  do  some- 
thing. For  the  present,  however,  nothing  is 
left  to  the  dramatic  poet  but  to  accommodate 
himself  to  public  taste  ;  and  in  this  sense  you 
could  not  be  blamed  if  you  chose  to  write  your 
Wallenstein  in  prose  ;  do  you  however  regard 
it  as  a  self-dependent  work,  then  it  must  neces- 
sarily become  rhythmical. 

"  At  all  events  we  are  obliged  to  forget  our 
age,  if  we  wish  to  work  according  to  our  con- 
victions ;  for,  such  a  shallow  vulgarity  in  prin- 
ciples as  at  present  prevails  has  assuredly  never 
before  been  in  the  world." 

One  more  extract  I  must  make  from  these 
hearty,  thoughtful,  wise,  •  lively  letters,  —  the 
opening  of  Schiller's  answer  to  the  above,  dated 
November  28,  1797.  We  know  with  what  mod- 
esty Goethe  spoke  of  Shakespeare :  here  we 


SCHILLER.  97 

have  a  glimpse  of  how  the  greatest  of  poets  im- 
pressed Schiller :  "  With  your  Elegy  you  have 
again  given  us  great  pleasure ;  it  belongs  so 
truly  to  the  pure  poetic  species,  as  through  so 
simple  a  means,  through  a  sportful  use  of  the 
subject,  it  stirs  up  the  deepest  and  points  to 
the  highest.  May  many  such  moods  cheer  you 
in  these  gloomy,  oppressive  days,  which  to  you 
also  I  know  are  so  fatal.  I  need  all  my  elas- 
ticity, in  order  to  make  myself  air  and  room 
against  the  down-weighing  heavens. 

"  I  read  lately  the  Shakespearean  pieces 
which  treat  of  the  War  of  the  Two  Roses,  and 
am  now,  after  finishing  Richard  the  Third, 
filled  with  amazement.  This  last  is  one  of  the 
sublimest  tragedies  that  I  know,  and  at  this  mo- 
ment I  could  not  say  whether  even  any  other 
one  of  Shakespeare  can  rank  before  it.  The 
great  destinies,  woven  in  the  preceding  pieces, 
are  ended  in  this  in  a  truly  great  manner,  and 
they  connect  themselves  together  according  to 
the  most  sublime  idea.  That  the  subject  of 
itself  excludes  entirely  the  tender,  the  melting, 
the  tear-moving,  assists  this  high  effect :  every- 
thing therein  is  energetic  and  great  ;  naught 
common  disturbs  the  pure  aesthetic  emotion  ; 
and  it  is,  as  it  were,  the  pure  form  of  the  dread 
tragic  that  one  enjoys." 
7 


98  GOETHE. 

Through  passages  cited  from  their  letters  the 
reader  knows  what  the  two  thought  they  had 
learnt  one  from  the  other,  how  much  they  had 
been  to  each  other.  The  expression  of  their 
obligations  was  probably  heightened  by  pro- 
found personal  esteem  and  reciprocal  admira- 
tion. The  passage  from  Goethe,  recording 
what  he  deemed  he  owed  to  Schiller,  is  from  a 
letter  dated  in  the  fourth  year  of  their  correspon- 
dence. Something,  doubtless,  each  gave  to  his 
friend,  the  strong  side  of  one  supplementing,  in 
some  degree,  the  weak  side  of  the  other.  But 
the  most  teemful  consequence  of  their  friendship 
was  the  stimulus  it  lent  to  their  powers  through 
earnest,  incessant,  close  cooperation.  The  great 
service  Literature  owes  to  their  intimacy  is, 
that  it  brought  out  of  each  the  best  there  was 
in  him.  The  sympathy  of  such  a  friend  as  a 
Goethe  was  to  a  Schiller,  and  a  Schiller  to  a 
Goethe,  warmed  the  faculties  of  either,  kindling 
the  inward  man  to  his  utmost  heat.  Their 
joint  high,  zealous  endeavors  after  poetic  ex- 
cellence braced  and  pruned  the  strength  of 
either  by  uniting  them  as  one  man,  while  each 
kept  to  his  own  path.  When  they  got  on  the 
slippery  track  of  the  Xenia  they  were  as  thor- 
oughly interfused  as  hostile  Indians  on  a  trail : 
their  shrewdest  foes  could  not  distinguish  their 


SCHILLER.  99 

footmarks.  Sometimes  one  named  the  subject 
and  the  other  executed  it :  sometimes  one  wrote 
the  first  line,  his  friend  the  second. 

When  in  1797  Goethe  came  back  from  a 
journey  to  Switzerland,  he  brought,  among 
other  poetic  booty,  hints  for  an  epic  poem  on 
William  Tell.  By  often  talking  over  the  plan 
and  scenery  with  Schiller,  the  subject  took 
such  hold  of  his  friend,  that  Schiller  projected 
a  drama  with  Tell  for  the  hero,  while  Goethe  — 
the  subject  having  lost  its  novelty,  and  the  to 
him  indispensable  secrecy  as  a  poetic  theme  — 
readily  gave  it  up  to  Schiller,  who  wrought  out 
of  it  one  of  his  best  tragedies,  weaving  in  with 
fidelity  and  effect,  through  Goethe's  descrip- 
tion, the  grand  physical  lineaments  of  the  Four 
Cantons.  When  Schiller  was  writing  his 
Wallenstein,  Goethe  inspirited  him  with  his 
sympathy :  Schiller  gave  the  same  refined  aid 
to  Goethe  in  his  Wilhelm  Meister. 

In  the  literary  lives  of  Goethe  and  Schiller 
the  year  1797  is  called  the  Ballad  year.  In 
friendly  rivalry  the  two  wrote  some  of  their 
best  ballads  ;  and  for  getting  a  clear  view  of 
the  aesthetic  difference  between  them  there  is 
no  readier  way  than  to  study  these.  Schiller's 
ballads  are  incidents  poetized,  incidents  with 
feeling  in  them,  for  else  they  could  not  be  poet- 


100  GOETHE. 

ized.  Goethe's  are  feeling  actualized  in  poetic 
forms.  With  Schiller  the  main  thing  is  the  in- 
cident, with  Goethe  the  sentiment.  Hence 
Schiller's  ballads  are  momentarily  more  excit- 
ing than  Goethe's,  but  not  so  warm,  and  not  so 
significant.  In  the  best  of  Goethe's  there  lies 
coiled  a  deeper,  a  more  generic  moral  meaning, 
or,  through  the  awe  they  cause,  they  make  the 
reader  feel  the  unseen.  Goethe  had  a  bound- 
less faith  :  he  held  firmly  to  that  invisible  chain 
which  binds  man  consciously  to  the  unknown. 
Faith  may  be  called  a  spiritual  gravitation, 
which  holds  us  to  our  place  relatively  to  the 
creative  power  whence  we  are. 

Compare  two  of  the  shorter  ballads,  The 
Glove,  by  Schiller,  and  The  Faithless  Boy,\>j 
Goethe.  Love  is  the  subject  of  both.  In  The 
Glove,  the  court  of  the  French  king  and 
knights  and  ladies  sit  in  an  amphitheatre  to 
witness  a  combat  between  lions  and  tigers  and 
leopards.  A  lady  drops  her  glove  between  a 
lion  and  a  tiger  crouching  near  each  other,  and 
then  mockingly  challenges  her  lover  to  fetch 
the  glove.  The  knight  descends  into  the 
arena,  picks  it  up,  and,  in  answer  to  the  warm 
smile  of  love  from  the  lady,  tosses  the  glove  in 
her  face.  This  ballad  has  been  translated  by 
Merivale,  and  by  Dwight  in  his  admirable  vol- 


SCHILLER.  10 1 

ume.  The  Faithless  Boy,  by  Goethe,  is  given 
in  the  joint  volume  of  his  "  Poems  and  Ballads," 
by  Aytoun  and  Martin.  I  make  the  following 
translation,  which  is,  I  think,  closer  to  the  text 
and  to  the  simplicity  of  the  original :  — 

There  was  a  stripling,  saucy,  bold, 

From  France  he  came  but  newly, 
Who  oft  a  poor  young  girl  did  fold 

In  the  arms  of  love  too  truly ; 
Had  pressed  her  fondly  to  his  side, 
And  jested  of  her  as  his  bride, 

And  after  all  deserted. 

When  the  girl  learnt  she  was  betrayed, 

Her  senses  from  her  parted  ; 
She  laughed  and  wept,  and  swore  and  prayed, 

And  thus  her  soul  departed. 
That  was  to  him  a  heavy  day, 
It  turned  his  hair  from  brown  to  gray, 

And  drove  him  forth  to  wander. 

He  struck  the  spurs  into  his  steed, 

Through  every  cross-road  gliding 
Hither  and  thither,  with  wildest  speed ; 

Can  find  no  rest  by  riding. 
Seven  days  and  seven  nights  he  rode  : 
It  lightened,  thundered,  crashed  and  blowed  ; 

The  floods  are  out  and  raging. 

He  rides  into  the  lightning's  teeth, 

Up  to  a  wall  he  rideth, 
And  ties  his  horse  and  creeps  beneath, 

And  from  the  rain  he  hideth. 
And  as  he  taps  from  side  to  side, 


102  GOETHE. 

Right  under  him  the  earth  gapes  wide  : 
He  plunges  down  a  hundred  fathom. 

And  as  he  comes  to  from  the  blow, 

He  sees  three  tapers  blinking, 
He  lifts  him  and  he  crawleth  low  j 

The  lights  go  further  winking  : 
This  way  and  that  they  lead  him  round, 
Now  up,  now  down,  and  underground, 

Through  broken,  dreary  caverns. 

Then,  of  a  sudden,  in  a  hall 

By  hundred  guests  he's  greeted  ; 
Their  hollow  eyes  smile  on  him  all ; 

They  nod  him  to  be  seated. 
And  there  among  them  meets  his  sight 
The  maiden  dear,  all  clad  in  white, 

She  turneth  — 

What  homeliness  and  simplicity  are  here,  and 
at  the  same  time  what  ideality  !  How  the  ele- 
ments are  made  to  fulminate  against  a  breach 
of  the  most  sacred  of  trusts !  Could  human 
voice  proclaim  with  more  emphasis,  with  a 
deeper  cry  of  the  soul,  —  "  You  are  above,  you 
justicers  ? "  And  how  rapid  is  the  action  :  in 
only  forty- two  short  lines  what  a  tale  and  what 
a  moral  is  compressed  !  And,  as  it  ever  should 
be  in  poetry,  the  moral  lies  modestly  nestled 
behind  the  aesthetic  beauty  and  grandeur. 
Poetry,  says  Goethe,  "  is  the  true  expression  of 
an  excited,  exalted  soul  without  aim  or  purpose." 
The  soul,  in  its  uplifted  states,  will,  without  aim 


SCHILLER.  IO3 

or  purpose,  and  more  surely  than  with  them, 
utter  the  deepest  moral  and  spiritual  truth. 
The  legitimate  effect  of  a  poem,  as  of  all  gen- 
uine Art,  is,  to  impart  to  the  reader  or  beholder 
some  of  that  exaltation  out  of  which  it  sprang. 
Thus  it  lifts  him  above  himself,  and  so, becomes 
effectively  and  nobly  moral  in  its  influence. 
Only  in  these  elevated,  inspired,  and  therefore 
self-forgetting  moods  can  true  poetry  be  pro- 
duced ;  and  then  deep  meanings  come  spon- 
taneously, often  deeper  than  the  writer  knew 
of  at  the  moment  of  writing.  He  who  strives 
to  say  deep  things  never  says  them.  So  of  the 
beautiful :  if  a  man  of  thought  and  feeling  be  in- 
wardly illuminated  by  his  susceptibility  thereto, 
this  illumination  will  show  itself  outwardly  in 
fresh,  exquisite  images  and  conceptions,  which 
come  to  him  unsought  and  unexpected. 

In  Goethe  the  inward  depth  was  deeper  than 
in  Schiller,  and  hence  the  richer  meaning,  the 
wider  bearing,  of  his  ballads  and  other  shorter 
poems.  Schiller  worked  more  through  the 
understanding  in  conjunction  with  the  sense  of 
the  beautiful  ;  Goethe  more  through  the  sen- 
sibilities. Thence  Schiller  was  always  cast- 
ing about  for  subjects,  for  incidents  or  life- 
passages,  which  while  they  are  striking  have 
enough  generic  quality  and  sentiment  in  them 


IO4  GOETHE. 

to  bear  being  versified.  Goethe  experienced  no 
such  want  of  subjects,  because  his  were  drawn 
from  an  inexhaustible  within.  Subjects,  indeed, 
crowded  upon  him  more  numerously  than  he 
could  execute.  "  No  one,"  he  declares,  "  can 
furnish  subjects  to  the  poet :  nay,  he  often 
blunders  in  choosing  them  himself." 

Schiller's  poetic  procedure  was  to  realize  his 
ideal  through  the  individual,  a  procedure  which 
is  sound  and  successful  when  you  have  individ- 
uals to  idealize.  The  power  of  individualiza- 
tion  is  the  creative  power.  This  lies  at  the  base 
of  all  thorough  poetic  work.  The  individual, 
whether  thing,  sentiment,  incident,  or  person, 
being  first  clearly  conceived,  must  be  held  in 
the  grasp  of  the  mind,  distinct,  organic,  specific, 
and  then,  by  means  of  poetic  imagination,  that 
is  imagination  illuminated  by  the  beautiful  and 
steadied  by  the  generic  reason,  he  or  it  is 
brightened  to  the  best  whereof  he  or  it  is  ca- 
pable. In  all  poetry  and  Art  this,  is  the  only 
legitimate  idealization  ;  for  hereby,  in  your 
subtlest  and  loftiest  ideals,  you  cling  to  the 
truth  of  nature.  This  power  of  individualiza- 
tion,  in  which  lay  the  primary  strength  of 
Goethe,  Schiller  somewhat  lacked.  Hence 
Goethe's  personages  have  in  them  more  pulse 
and  presence  than  Schiller's  :  among  them- 


SCHILLER.  105 

selves  they  are  differentiated  distinctly ;  nor 
are  they  at  all  prosaic  as  individuals.  If  your 
personage  is  not  specifically  individualized,  he 
is  liable,  when  you  descend  upon  him  from  your 
ideal  heights,  to  be  enveloped  in  a  magnifying 
mist  which,  even  if  a  golden  mist,  obscures 
and  dislocates  his  lineaments,  leaving  him  at 
the  end  a  vague,  loose  figure,  whom  we  can- 
not closely  embrace  with  the  arms  of  our  love 
and  admiration.  The  personages  of  Schiller's 
dramas  partake,  more  or  less,  of  this  character  ; 
hence  they  have  been  called  thought-creatures  : 
they  are  somewhat  hollow  and  unreal.  Those 
of  Goethe's  are  more  soul-creatures,  and  thence 
more  actual.  As  the  ideal  cannot  be  realized 
without  the  mind  being  first  able  to  give  birth 
to  concrete  individuals,  so  the  real  cannot  be 
idealized,  —  which  was  Goethe's  procedure,  — 
without  an  idealizing  and  generalizing  power. 
Goethe  made  the  particular,  the  individual, 
represent,  or  at  least  point  to,  the  universal ; 
and  he  did  this  because  the  universal  and  abso- 
lute was  organically  native  to  his  mind.  The 
individual  products  of  the  earth  you  cannot  see 
without  the  one  universal  Sun  ;  and  when  by 
its  light  you  are  enabled  to  perceive  them,  you 
cannot  fail  to  find  that  the  Sun  has  been  busy 
with  them  and  all  their  parts. 


106  GOETHE. 

In  the  beginning  of  1805  Goethe  and  Schiller 
were  both  ill.  Goethe  had  a  presentiment  that 
one  of  them  would  die.  One  day,  when  they 
had  not  met  for  several  weeks,  Schiller,  having 
partly  recovered,  entered  Goethe's  sick  room. 
They  walked  up  to  each  other  and  earnestly 
embraced.  For  a  time  both  rallied.  At  the 
end  of  April  Goethe  went  to  see  Schiller :  he 
found  him  just  about  going  to  the  theatre. 
Goethe  was  not  well  enough  to  accompany  him. 
The  two  friends  parted  at  Schiller's  door,  never 
to  meet  again  on  earth. 

A  man  of  Goethe's  sensibility,  and  of  his 
affectionateness  of  nature  as  shown  in  many  re- 
lations with  his  fellow-men,  would  of  course  be 
deeply  moved  by  the  loss  of  such  a  friend  as 
Schiller.  When,  on  the  ninth  of  May,  1805, 
Schiller  died,  Goethe  was  enfeebled  by  long 
illness.  Hereby  his  nervous  tone  was  lowered. 
This  depressed  condition  accounts  for  the 
touching  manifestations  of  grief  recorded  just 
before  Schiller's  death.  One  day,  during  Schil- 
ler's illness,  a  friend  of  Goethe  found  him  in 
tears  pacing  up  and  down  his  garden,  and  at 
night  he  was  heard  weeping.  This  record  has 
its  value,  but  is  not  needed  to  prove  the  gen- 
uineness and  strength  of  Goethe's  love  for 
Schiller  ;  and  it  testifies  to  the  morbid  state  of 


SCHILLER.  TO/ 

one  whose  discipline  it  was  to  bear  up  calmly 
under  bereavement. 

To  Zelter,  Goethe  wrote :  "  I  thought  to  lose 
myself,  and  instead  of  that  I  lose  a  friend,  and 
in  him  the  half  of  my  being."  In  order  to  en- 
gross his  mind,  to  divert  his  thoughts  from  his 
loss,  to  continue  co-working  with  his  friend, 
and  thus  keep  him  still  genially  present,  he 
resolved  to  take  up  and  finish  Demetriiis,  a 
tragedy  which  Schiller  had  begun.  They  had 
often  talked  over  the  plan  together,  so  that 
Goethe  knew  thoroughly  Schiller's  design.  It 
was  to  be  a  monument  to  Schiller  such  as 
Goethe,  and  Goethe  alone,  could  raise.  But 
he  could  not  set  himself  to  the  chosen  task : 
his  mind  was  unstrung  for  such  work.  The 
following  extract  from  Goethe's  Year-Book  for 
1805  describes  his  condition  when  he  found  he 
could  not  take  up  Demetrius  :  "  Now  for  the 
first  time  I  felt  that  he  was  gone  :  insupport- 
able sorrow  seized  me  ;  and  as  my  bodily 
sufferings  cut  me  off  from  all  company?  I  was 
left  in  the  saddest  loneliness.  My  journals  tell 
nothing  of  that  period  :  the  blank  leaves  denote 
the  inward  emptiness,  and  such  minutes  as  are 
found  testify  that  I  just  kept  by  the  side  of 
current  occupations,  without  interest,  and  let 
them  lead  me  instead  of  my  leading  them." 


IV. 

FRIENDSHIPS. 

BEFORE  and  after  the  ten  years  of  intimacy 
with  Schiller,  as  well  as  contemporaneously 
with  that,  Goethe  had  other  friendships,  to 
warm  and  expand  him.  In  youth,  among  his 
friends  were  men  older  than  himself;  in  ma- 
turest  age,  younger  men.  Friends  he  had,  and 
could  not  be  without,  all  through  a  long,  prolific 
life.  Sociable,  kindly,  and  eminently  attractive 
he  was,  and  of  that  cheeriest  hospitality  which 
opens  not  doors  only,  but  the  mind.  He  had 
much  to  give,  and  he  gave  gladly  to  all  who 
could  receive  his  gifts.  As  in  his  intellectual 
structure  there  was  capacity  for  broadest  grasp 
and  generalization,  with  acute  talent  for  ob- 
serving, in  his  feelings  he  united  sympathy  for 
all  human  being,  enjoying  or  suffering,  a  con- 
stitutional love  for  man,  with  a  ready  attach- 
ment to  individual  men,  and  sharp  preferences 
among  those  nearest  him.  "  Pity,"  wrote  Jung 
Stilling,  one  of  his  Strasbourg  friends,  "  that  so 


FRIENDSHIPS.  109 

few  are  acquainted  with  this  noble  man  in 
respect  of  his  heart." 

Through  a  supreme  instinct  genius  seizes  its 
proper  food,  rejecting  what  is  unserviceable 
or  noxious.  Goethe  was  thrown  early  upon 
himself.  He  was  not  seventeen  when  he  en- 
tered the  University  of  Leipzig.  The  student 
at  a  German  University  is  his  own  master : 
the  precious,  priceless  hours  are  his,  to  do  with 
them  what  he  will.  Leipzig,  besides  being  the 
seat  of  a  University,  was  a  lively  commercial 
centre.  To  young  men,  just  emancipated  from 
pedagogic  discipline  and  parental  presence, 
such  a  town  is  profuse  of  opportunities,  of  invi- 
tations, of  enticements.  That  of  these  Goethe 
yielded  mostly  to  the  fair,  and  from  the  foul 
got  experience  and  no  permanent  tainture,  was 
due,  not  solely  to  the  healthy  natural  selection 
of  genius,  but  to  a  fundamental  rectitude  of 
nature,  which,  through  all  the  extravagancies 
and  seeming  lawlessness  of  his  youth,  kept  him 
from  damaging  aberrations,  and  held  him  to  a 
forward  and  upward  course.  A  boy  in  years, 
he  was  a  man  through  native  common  sense 
and  precocious  thoughtfulness,  as  well  as  from 
an  interior  tropical  glow  of  temperament. 

A  youth,  overflowing  with  animal  spirits, 
full  of  life,  curiosity,  geniality,  impressible  and 


HO'  GOETHE. 

beautiful,  would  not  fail  to  attract  and  be  at- 
tracted. Around  him  was  soon  a  circle  of  the 
ripe  and  the  unripe,  of  both  sexes,  to  whom  he 
gave  and  from  whom  he  received.  His  most 
serviceable  friend  was  Frau  Boehme,  wife  of  a 
professor,  one  of  those  paragons  of  womanly 
being  enfolded  in  an  atmosphere  of  grace, 
through  which  shine  intelligence  and  feminine 
helpfulness.  By  her  the  untamed  youth  was 
subdued  to  conformity  in  his  dress  and  bear- 
ing ;  and  through  her  he  also  learnt  the  worth- 
lessness  of  the  poets  he  admired,  and  of  his 
imitations  of  them.  How  fortunate  was  he, 
to  have  come  within  the  radiance  of  such  a 
woman :  how  blest  was  she,  to  meet  in  the 
wild  student  one  so  accessible  to  her  fine 
instruction.  Young  people  are  so  apt  to  be 
obtuse  towards  happy  opportunities. 

For  what  he  learnt  from  Oeser,  Director  of 
the  Drawing  Academy,  Goethe  was  grateful 
through  life.  Oeser  had  been  the  teacher  and 
friend  of  Winckelman.  In  after  years  Goethe 
wrote  to  him  :  "  What  do  I  not  owe  to  you  for 
having  pointed  out  to  me  the  way  of  the  True 
and  the  Beautiful ! "  Another  Leipzig  friend 
was  Behrish,  older  than  Goethe  by  a  dozen 
years,  who  fed  other  wants  of  his  hungry  na- 
ture, —  his  love  of  jokes  and  vof  mystification. 


FRIENDSHIPS.  Ill 

Imaginative  and  sprightly,  the  strength  of 
Behrish  lay  however,  like  that  of  Merk,  a  later 
friend  of  Goethe,  on  the  negative  side. 

That  he  might  become  a  thorough  lawyer, 
Goethe  was  in  his  twentieth  year  transferred 
by  his  father  from  the  University  of  Leipzig  to 
that  of  Strasbourg.  There,  too,  he  became  the 
centre  of  a  circle  which  he  animated.  There, 
too,  the  most  valuable  friendship  he  formed  was 
with  one  older  than  himself,  with  Herder. 
That,  notwithstanding  Herder's  peevishness 
and  jealousies,  this  friendship  lasted  till  his 
death,  was  probably  owing  to  the  strong  hold 
Goethe  got  in  Strasbourg  on  his  heart.  Her- 
der had  come  to  Strasbourg  on  account  of  a 
disease  of  the  eyes.  When  an  operation  was 
performed  on  them,  Goethe  was  at  his  side, 
and  sat  with  him  twice  a  day,  morning  and 
'evening,  during  a  long  convalescence.  Later, 
when  they  had  both  lived  years  in  close  prox- 
imity, Herder  wrote  to  Knebel  of  Goethe : 
"  He  carries  his  head  and  his  heart  always  in 
the  right  place,  and  in  every  step  of  his  life  he 
is  a  man." 

Easy  fidelity  to  the  conditions  and  duties  of 
friendship  was  a  marked  trait  in  Goethe.  In 
Rome,  when  his  friend  Moritz  broke  an  arm, 
Goethe  nursed  him.  Of  this  he  wrote  thus 


112  GOETHE. 

characteristically  :  "  What  I  have  experienced 
and  learnt  as  watcher,  confessor,  and  confidant 
of  this  sufferer,  as  his  finance-minister  and 
private  secretary,  may  be  of  service  to  me 
hereafter.  In  those  days  the  sharpest  sorrows 
went  hand  in  hand  with  the  noblest  enjoy- 
ments." But  let  any  one  try  to  do  these  acts 
so  devotedly  just  for  the  sake  of  self-culture 
and  the  good  it  may  bring  him ! 

Goethe  yearned  for  fellowship.  He  pub- 
lished, not  so  much  for  the  public,  as  for  friends 
who  were,  or  whom  he  longed  to  have,  in  sym- 
pathy with  him.  His  poems  are  confidential 
outpourings  to  himself  from  his  inmost  spirit, 
impartings  from  the  eternal  me  to  the  daily 
me.  Into  this  secret  dual  solo  he  loved  to 
draw  a  third  person,  or  persons,  who  would 
feel  with  the  other  two,  with  the  man  and  with 
the  poet.  The  creative  mind  is  lonely,  courts 
solitude :  its  work  is  as  silent  and  inapproach- 
able as  is  the  renovating  energy  of  Nature  in 
crescent  spring.  Its  depths  are  in  the  unseen, 
in  the  heavenly  spontaneous  ;  and  the  more 
genuine  the  inspiration,  the  less  responsive  is 
it  to  superficial  solicitings.  But  when  genius 
is  conjoined  to  an  affectionate  and  a  social 
personality,  its  possessor  will  hasten,  with  the 
eagerness  of  a  child,  to  show  its  new  gifts,  to 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 1 3 

communicate  its  fresh  figments.  The  going 
out  of  one's  self  into  another,  the  throwing  of 
one's  life  into  other  lives,  is  the  highest  privi- 
lege, the  consummate  virtue,  of  a  man's  being  ; 
and  the  poet's  revelations  of  his  inmost  is  a 
form  of  this  self-giving. 

We  have  seen  what  a  source  of  genial  joy 
and  of  intellectual  stimulus  to  Goethe  was  the 
friendship  of  Schiller.  From  his  boyish  and 
youthful  companionships  at  Frankfort  and  the 
Universities,  to  the  intimate  ties  between  him 
and  his  several  secretaries  in  his  latter  years, 
the  friendly  bonds  that  were  necessary  to  his 
well-being  were  most  of  them  strengthened  by 
these  finer  aesthetic  threads.  So  with  his  long 
attachment  to  Meyer,  a  zealous,  capable  writer 
on  Art,  who  was  at  different  periods  an  in- 
mate of  Goethe's  house  for  weeks  and  months 
at  a  time.  At  Rome  we  saw  him  quickly 
united. with  Artists.  But  neither  with  Schiller 
nor  with  any  of  the  many  others  could  these 
relations  have  been  so  close  and  enduring,  had 
there  not  been  in  Goethe,  beneath  the  genius 
and  the  active  thinker,  tlie  hearty  man  who 
needed  to  love  and  to  be  loved. 

Goethe  says,  that  for  the  flowering  of  the 
best  natural  gifts,  circumstances  must  be  pro- 
pitious. But  the  paramount  function  of  the 


114  GOETHE. 

gifted  is  to  resist  old  circumstances  and  create 
new  ones,  to  break  through  the  surroundings 
and  fences  of  timorous  custom,  and  leap  into 
new  fields.  Wanting  this  stout  corps  of  born 
pioneers,  —  men  who  get  their  exceptional  mo- 
mentum from  the  powers  behind  their  birth, 
—  wanting  these,  humanity  could  not  unfold 
itself,  would  be  doomed  to  arid  stationariness. 
Goethe,  himself  a  leader  in  the  pioneer  corps, 
knew  —  no  one  better  —  its  expansive  virtue. 
By  the  favor  of  circumstances,  he  meant  those 
opportunities  and  facilities  for  culture  and 
recognition  which  are,  especially  to  the  Poet 
and  Artist,  important  for  the  play  and  pros- 
perous projection  of  their  inborn  superiorities. 
He  himself  would  doubtless  have  been  cramped, 
and  would  have  failed  to  reach  his  proper  alti- 
tude, in  Iowa  or  Arkansas,  or  perhaps  even  in 
his  native  Frankfort.  He  felt  that  he  had  been 
favored  by  what,  as  regards  an  individual,  seem 
the  accidents  of  fortune  ;  favored  in  the  time 
and  place  of  his  coming  upon  the  stage  of  life  ; 
especially  favored  in  his  parents,  whose  marked 
and  contrasting  qualities  were  so  happily  fused 
to  compound  the  many-sidedness  of  their  son  ; 
and  favored  by  meeting  the  young  Duke  of 
Weimar.  But  here  comes  in  Goethe's  own 
winning  personality.  Had  he  not  been  just 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 1 5 

the  Goethe  that  he  was,  the  meeting  would 
have  been  barren.  On  the  other  hand,  few 
young  sovereign  Dukes  would  have  had  the 
respondent  magnetism  to  feel  at  once  the 
power  of  a  young  Goethe,  and  having  urgently 
invited  the  brilliant  Doctor  of  laws  to  visit  him 
in  Weimar,  would  have  had,  when  he  got  him 
there,  the  clear  solidity  of  judgment  to  weigh 
him  so  accurately.  Before  the  expiration  of  a 
year  the  Duke  raised  his  young  friend  to  a 
high  official  post.  And  when  the  court  and 
town  cried  out  against  this  sudden  unexampled 
elevation,  the  prophetic  boy  (he  was  not  yet 
twenty)  added  with  his  own  hand  to  the  pro- 
tocol of  the  acts  of  his  ministers,  the  following 
intelligent  and  noble  justification :  "  Enlight- 
ened persons  congratulate  me  on  possessing 
such  a  man.  His  genius  and  capacity  are  well 
known.  To  employ  a  man  of  such  a  stamp  in 
any  other  functions  than  those  in  which  he  can 
render  available  the  extraordinary  gifts  he  pos- 
sesses, is  to  abuse  them.  As  to  the  observa- 
tion that  persons  of  merit  think  themselves 
passed  over :  I  observe,  in  the  first  place,  that 
nobody  to  my  knowledge,  in  my  service,  has  a 
right  to  count  on  an  equal  degree  of  favor  ; 
and  I  add  that  I  will  never  consent  to  be  gov- 
erned by  mere  length  of  service  or  rotation,  in 


Il6  GOETHE. 

my  choice  of  a  person  whose  functions  place 
him  in  such  immediate  relation  to  myself,  and 
are  so  important  to  the  happiness  of  my  people. 
In  such  a  case,  I  shall  attend  to  nothing  but 
the  degree  of  confidence  I  can  repose  in  the 
person  of  my  choice.  The  public  opinion, 
which  perhaps  censures  the  admission  of  Dr. 
Goethe  to  my  Council  without  having  passed 
the  previous  steps  of  Amtman,  Professor, 
Kammerrath,  or  Regierungsrath,  produces  no 
effect  on  my  judgment.  The  world  forms  its 
opinion  on  prejudices  ;  but  I  watch  and  work, 
—  as  every  man  must  who  wishes  to  do  his 
duty,  —  not  to  make  a  noise,  not  to  attract  the 
applause  of  the  world,  but  to  justify  my  con- 
duct to  God  and  my  conscience." 

Of  all  Goethe's  friendships  this  with  the 
Duke  of  Weimar  was  the  longest  and  most 
prolific,  and  more  prolific  to  the  Duke  himself 
than  to  Goethe.  It  lasted  more  than  half  a 
century,  having  begun  in  1775  and  ended  with 
the  death  of  the  Duke,  in  1828. 

For  a  few  months  after  Goethe's  arrival  in 
Weimar  the  two  friends  led  a  wild,  corybantic 
life  together,  hunting,  dancing,  masquerading, 
skating,  sleighing,  flirting,  fooling.  But  in  the 
midst  of  this  jovial  exuberance  business  was  not 
forgotten.  Already,  before  his  formal  official  in- 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 17 

vestiture  with  the  title  and  duties  of  Councilor, 
Goethe  was  playing  towards  his  younger  friend 
the  part  of  a  Mentor- Pylades.  As  a  sample  of 
the  force  of  animal  spirits,  the  two  one  day 
stood  in  the  market-square  of  Jena  smacking 
great  cart-whips  for  a  wager.  Casting  our  look 
a  half  century  forward,  we  see,  in  contrast  with 
that  feat,  the  same  Duke,  in  August,  1827,  en- 
tering the  study  of  his  friend,  accompanied  by 
the  King  of  Bavaria,  who  comes  to  pay  homage 
to  the  renowned  poet,  offering  him  the  order 
of  the  Grand  Cross.  Goethe,  turning  to  the 
Duke,  replies,  with  doubtless  as  much  of  arch 
playfulness  as  of  punctiliousness  :  "  If  my  gra- 
cious sovereign  consents."  To  which  Carl 
August  rejoins  :  "  Come,  old  fellow,  no  non- 
sense." 

The  Dowager  Duchess,  the  mother  of  Carl 
August,  the  sprightly,  sociable,  unceremonious 
Amalia,  who  chose  Wieland  to  be  tutor  to  her 
boys,  and  during  their  minority  administered 
the  Duchy  dutifully  and  capably,  she  would  not 
fail  to  be  a  friend  and  admirer  of  Goethe. 
How  cordial  their  relations  became  is  learnt 
from  one  of  his  notes  to  her.  Herder,  whom 
Goethe  had  induced  the  Duke  to  call  to  Wei- 
mar as  court-chaplain,  had  to  maintain  a  large 
family  on  slender  means.  The  Duke  took 


Il8  GOETHE. 

upon  him  to  provide  for  one  of  the  children, 
and  Goethe  wrote  to  the  Duchess  Amalia,  beg- 
ging her  to  do  the  same  for  another.  This 
Goethe  did  too  at  a  time  when  Herder  showed 
no  friendliness  towards  him.  Not  receiving 
prompt  answer  to  his  appeal,  Goethe  wrote 
again,  telling  the  Duchess  that  if  she  did  not 
provide  for  the  child,  he  should  do  it  himself. 
On  the  death  of  Amalia,  in  1807,  Goethe  said 
at  her  funeral :  "  It  is  the  privilege  of  the  no- 
bler natures  that  their  passing  away  to  higher 
spheres  works  blessing,  as  did  their  abode  on 
earth  ;  for,  like  stars,  they  shine  towards  us  as 
points  of  light,  by  which  in  our  storm-tossed 
voyage  we  may  steer  our  course." 

Two  or  three  years  before  coming  to  Wei- 
mar Goethe  wrote  a  satirical  farce,  called 
Gods,  Heroes,  and  Wieland,  dashing  it  off  at  a 
single  sitting,  with  a  bottle  of  Burgundy  by  his 
side.  So  little  malevolence  was  there  in  it, 
that  on  the  third  day  after  Goethe's  arrival  in 
Weimar,  Wieland  met  him  by  invitation  at  a 
friend's  house,  and  was  so  charmed  with  him 
that  he  wrote  to  Jacobi  :  "  Dearest  little 
brother,  what  have  I  to  tell  you  !  How  wholly 
is  the  man  after  my  heart  !  I  fell  in  love  with 
him  at  first  sight  as  at  dinner  I  sat  beside  the 
superb  youth."  On  the  day  of  Wieland's  fu- 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 1 9 

neral,  thirty-eight  years  after  this  first  meeting, 
Falk  found  Goethe  much  affected.  He  spoke 
of  the  continuance  of  existence  after  death  as  a 
thing  of  course.  "  And  what  do  you  think," 
asked  Falk,  "  is  at  this  moment  the  occupation 
of  Wieland's  soul  ? "  "  Nothing  petty,  nothing 
unworthy,  nothing  out  of  keeping  with  that 
moral  greatness  which  he  all  his  life  sustained. 
It  is  something  to  have  passed  a  life  of  eighty 
years  in  unblemished  dignity  and  honor;  it  is 
something  to  have  attained  to  that  pitch  of  re- 
fined wit,  of  tender,  elegant  thought,  which  pre- 
dominated so  delightfully  in  Wieland's  soul ;  it 
is  something  to  have  possessed  that  industry, 
that  iron  persistency  and  perseverance,  in 
which  he  surpassed  us  all.  The  destruction  of 
such  high  powers  of  soul  is  a  thing  that  never, 
and  under  no  circumstances,  can  even  come 
into  question.  Nature  is  not  such  a  spend- 
thrift of  her  capital.  Wieland's  soul  is  one  of 
Nature's  treasures,  a  perfect  jewel." 

I  come  now  to  a  friendship  of  Goethe,  which, 
like  that  with  Schiller,  was  formed  in  his  ma- 
ture years,  and  which  fed  a  correspondence 
more  voluminous  than  that,  covering,  as  it 
does,  many  more  years.  "  Of  all  rare  gifts," 
says  Goethe,  "the  rarest  is  the  gift  to  be  a 
friend."  Among  the  many  proofs  he  gave  of 


120  GOETHE. 

himself  possessing  this  gift,  none  is  stronger 
than  his  friendship  for  Zelter. 

Zelter  entered  manhood  in  Berlin  as  a  stone- 
mason, and  then  master-builder,  but  was  so 
attracted  to  music,  that  he  soon  abandoned  a 
vocation  for  which  he  had  much  fitness,  for 
one  for  which  he  had  still  more.  He  became 
Director  of  a  public  singing  school,  through 
which  he  did  good  service  in  Berlin,  stimulat- 
ing many  to  the  cultivation  of  music,  and  edu- 
cating some  excellent  musicians.  The  cele- 
brated Mendelssohn  was  his  pupil.  By  his 
capacity  and  character  he  won  the  good-will 
and  friendship  of  distinguished  men  and  high 
officials. 

With  Goethe  Zelter's  acquaintance  began 
through  music,  Zelter  having  composed  airs  to 
some  of  the  poet's  songs.  He  speaks  of  his 
"  agreeable  fright "  on  hearing  that  Goethe 
liked  them.  The  first  letters  were  exchanged 
in  1799.  In  1801  Zelter  sent  Goethe  a  bio- 
graphical notice  he  had  just  printed  of  a  friend 
and  musician.  Goethe,  in  the  letter  acknowl- 
edging it,  writes  a  sentence  weighty,  like  so 
many  others  of  his,  with  a  fresh  wisdom.  The 
sympathetic,  vivid  portrait  drawn  by  Zelter  he 
contrasts  with  the  performance  of  those  necrol- 
ogists who,  immediately  on  the  death  of  a  man 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 2 1 

of  note,  "go  busily  to  work  to  balance  the  good 
against  the  evil  in  his  life,  and  with  hypocrit- 
ical justice  set  forth  his  so  called  virtues  and 
faults,  thereby  destroying  a  personality  far 
more  effectually  than  death  can  do  it ;  for,  a 
personality  can  only  be  conceived  in  the  lively 
conjunction  of  such  opposite  qualities." 

In  1 802  Zelter,  by  a  visit  to  Weimar,  tight- 
ened, through  face  to  face  intercourse,  the  ties 
that  already  bound  him  to  Goethe.  Thence- 
forth their  letters  are  more  frequent  and  more 
intimate.  The  subjoined  extract,  from  a  letter 
of  Goethe  to  Zelter,  April  ist,  1802,  I  should 
not  make  were  it  only  a  proof  of  the  increased 
intimacy  between  them  ;  but  it  illustrates  a  trait 
in  Goethe,  and  one  which  is  essential  to  a  fuller 
likeness  of  him.  Friendly  services  of  this  kind 
were  habitual  to  Goethe :  through  good-will 
and  principle  he  amply  obeyed  his  own  pre- 
cept, and  did  "  the  duty  nearest  him,"  whether 
it  were  small  or  large. 

"  One  of  our  most  thorough  business-men,  of 
the  subordinate  class,  has  destined  his  son  to 
be  a  carpenter.  The  young  man  has  served  an 
apprenticeship  of  three  years,  and  has  worked 
three  quarters  of  a  year  as  journeyman.  They 
wish  now  to  send  him  abroad,  and  they  think 
that  in  Berlin  he  would  have  an  opportunity  of 
learning  much. 


122  GOETHE. 

"  Would  you  have  the  goodness  to  give  me, 
out  of  your  knowledge,  some  good  advice.  Of 
course  the  young  man,  while  learning  his  trade, 
would  like  to  earn  something,  and  an  addition 
can  be  furnished  him  from  home.  But  it  were 
desirable  that  in  a  large,  seductive  city  there 
were  some  one  to  have  an  eye  on  him." 

A  quarter  of  a  century  from  the  opening  of 
the  correspondence  and  friendship  between 
Goethe  and  Zelter,  Chancellor  von  Mueller  of 
Weimar,  in  his  valuable  report  of  conversations 
with  Goethe,  makes  the  following  entry  :  "  This 
morning  the  admirable,  honest  Zelter  gave  me 
by  his  visit  a  couple  of  most  delightful  hours. 
How  clear,  vigorous,  incisive  is  everything  he 
says.  '  People  often  wonder,'  said  he,  '  how  it 
is  that  I  am  on  so  good  a  footing  with  Goethe, 
who  is  so  much  higher  and  deeper  than  I.  I 
am  rough,  even  rude,  go  straight  ahead,  am 
willful,  impetuous  ;  but  I  have  a  soul  and  an 
open  eye.  I  have  been  obliged  to  hew  my  own 
way  :  what  I  am,  I  am  through  slow,  close, 
hard  work,  from  the  time  I  was  a  journeyman- 
mason.  But  I  know  Goethe  thoroughly,  and 
have  often  rightly  divined  the  obscure  passages 
in  his  poems,  sometimes  through  my  setting 
them  to  music.  Goethe  is  like  a  child,  he 
gives  whatever  he  has.  The  philister-savants 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 2  3 

cry  out  that  he  dabbles  in  everything.  Now, 
if  you  already  knew  what  he  has  done  in 
science,  or  something  better,  why,  you  asses, 
did  you  not  give  it  to  us.' " 

That  was  it :  Zelter  had  more  soul  than  most 
men,  and  thence  saw  many  things  more  clearly. 
Having  been  drawn  into  contact  with  him 
through  the  skill  wherewith  he  set  songs  to 
music,  Goethe  found  in  Zelter's  honesty  and 
heartiness  what  attached  his  affections,  and  in 
Zelter's  intelligence  and  earnest  activity  what 
enlarged  his  own  intellectual  sphere,  and  put 
him  in  fructifying  relations  with  more  men  and 
fresh  circumstances.  In  the  latter  part  of  his 
high  career  a  correspondent  like  Zelter  was 
just  what  Goethe  needed.  From  continuous 
confidential  communications  with  suth  a  man 
he  drew  comfort  and  strength.  To  have  a 
strong-headed  and,  at  the  same  time,  genial 
friend  to  whom,  from  his  ever-replenished  full- 
ness, he  could  familiarly  pour  out  thoughts, 
opinions,  judgments,  feelings,  was  a  boon  to 
one  who  so  enjoyed  utterance  as  Goethe  did. 
Posterity  has  to  thank  Zelter  for  inner  views  of 
Goethe  which  but  for  this  sympathetic  friend 
we  should  never  have  had.  Here  is  a  bio- 
graphical stroke  which  could  be  made  by  no 
pen  but  the  autobiographical.  In  1807  Goethe 


124  GOETHE. 

writes  :  "  Your  reiterated  invitation  makes  my 
heart  heavy.  That  I  have  not  yet  become  ac- 
quainted with  your  institution  [the  Singing- 
Academy  at  Berlin]  is  unpardonable ;  but,  for 
some  years  past  I  have  a  clinging  to  home, 
which  comes  chiefly  from  this,  that  there  is  in 
me  so  much  that  is  stirred  up  and  yet  not 
worked  up.  Thus  I  am  busy  the  whole  year, 
in  order  to  get  only  here  and  there  a  clear  in- 
sight ;  without  counting  care  of  health  and  cur- 
rent circumstances.  Yet  these  would  not  be 
enough  to  restrain  me.  But  at  bottom  the 
cause  is,  that  I  am  afraid  of  new  influences  and 
excitements,  and  thence  purposely  forego  many 
an  enjoyment." 

Ever  a  conscientious,  earnest  student  of  Art, 
Goethe  evidently  believed  with  Aristotle  that 
the  most  weighty  and  philosophical  human 
product  is  poetry.  Hence  he  was  through  life 
frequently  offended  by  the  shallow  pretensions, 
the  false  aims,  of  writers  who,  because  they 
have  some  poetic  sensibility  and  some  gift  of 
expression,  believe  that  sentimental  effusion  in 
verse  and  unshaped  utterance  and  rhetorical 
coloring  are  poetry.  From  his  constructive 
thoughtfulness  and  varied  sagacious  practice, 
Goethe  knew  that  a  poem,  to  be  a  poem,  must  be 
organic  ;  that  is,  in  order  to  put  and  keep  life  in 


FRIENDSHIPS.  12$ 

it,  it  must  have,  not  a  body  merely,  but  a  self- 
proportioned  body ;  must,  in  one  word,  have  a 
soul ;  for,  having  a  soul,  the  soul  will  build  for 
itself  a  suitable  body: 

He  had  recommended  to  Zelter  a  young 
musician  of  Weimar.  In  1 808  he  thus  writes : 
"  Take  my  best  thanks,  dear  friend,  for  that 
which  you  are  willing  and  able  to  do  for  young 
Eberwein.  The  world  of  Art  lies,  indeed,  all 
too  much  in  the  difficult  and  severe,  that  a 
young  man  should  so  easily  become  aware 
what  there  is  to  do.  They  ever  seek  it  else- 
where than  there  where  it  is  to  be  found,  and 
even  when  they  do  get  sight  of  the  source, 
they  cannot  find  the  road  to  it. 

"  Thence  I  am  brought  to  despair  by  a  half 
dozen  young  poets  who,  with  much  more  than 
common  natural  gifts,  will  not  bring  much  to 
pass  that  I  can  take  satisfaction  in.  Werner, 
Oehlenschlseger,  Arnim,  Brentano  and  others 
keep  constantly  at  work  ;  but  what  they  pro- 
duce runs  into  the  formless  and  characterless. 
No  one  will  understand,  that  the  highest  and 
only  operation  of  Nature  and  of  Art  is,  to  give 
shape,  and  in  the  shaping  specification,  in  order 
that  each  production  be  and  remain  individual 
and  significant." 

To  scientific  contemporaries  Goethe  owed  a 


126  GOETHE. 

grudge  for  the  indifference  and  even  contempt 
wherewith  the  most  of  them  treated  his  Theory 
of  Colors,  to  the  study  of  which  in  the  latter 
half  of  his  life,  he  gave  much  time,  the  exposi- 
tion of  which  fills  several  volumes  of  his  works, 
and  with  which  he  made  pretension  to  have 
overthrown  the  Newtonian  theory.  This  pre- 
tension, scientifically  and  elaborately  set  forth, 
deserved  a  scientific  examination,  a  thorough 
experimental  refutation  or  confirmation.  Such 
examination  it  seems  never  to  have  even  yet 
received. 

Inventions  are  far  more  rapidly  successful 
than  discoveries  :  they  are  nearer  to  the  com- 
mon mind.  The  inventions  consequent  on  the 
discovery  of  the  force  of  steam  have  spread  all 
over  Christendom,  and  beyond  it,  while  the  dis- 
covery of  the  physiology  of  the  brain,  moment- 
ous beyond  expression,  and  made  about  the 
same  time,  not  being  diffusible  through  inven- 
tions, continues  yet  unacknowledged  by  the 
very  classes  who  are,  or  ought  to  be,  most  con- 
cerned for  its  cultivation  ;  and  so,  metaphysi- 
cians and  psychologists  and  moralists  keep 
swinging  round  in  the  twilight  circle  of  con- 
sciousness, into  which  if  they  would  but  let  the 
light  of  Gall's  splendid  insight,  their  half-truths 
would  be  illuminated  into  whole  truths,  and 


FRIENDSHIPS.  I2/ 

deep  problems  be  solved  which,  without  such 
light,  must  remain  insoluble.  This  discovery  is 
just  the  objective  that  is  wanted  for  the  meta- 
physical subjective. 

When,  in  1805,  Gall  came  to  Halle  to  ex- 
pound his  new  discovery,  Goethe  happened  to 
be  there  on  a  visit  to  his  friend,  Professor  Wolf; 
and  he  gladly  seized  the  opportunity  to  be  so 
"  profoundly  instructed."  He  not  only  at- 
tended Gall's  lectures,  but  sought  long  inter- 
views with  him.  The  result  was,  that  he  ac- 
cepted the  discovery,  and  he  devotes  several 
pages  of  the  Diary  to  its  fundamental  posi- 
tions. As  Director  of  the  theatre  in  Weimar 
he  rejected  a  farce,  sent  him  by  a  friend,  called 
the  "  Skull-scholar,"  because  he  would  not  "  on 
general  grounds  give  countenance  to  anything 
which  tended  to  bring  ridicule  or  contempt 
upon  the  praiseworthy  investigations  of  a  man 
like  Gall." 

The  mathematicians,  Goethe  thought,  were 
especially  obtuse  against  his  doctrine  of  colors. 
In  a  long  letter  to  Zelter,  in  1811,  he  touches 
off  at  them  a  triple-shotted  field-piece  :  "  For 
the  rest,  on  this  occasion,  what  I  have  lopg 
known  becomes  plainer  to  me  than  ever, 
namely,  that  the  culture  which  the  mind  gets 
from  Mathematics  is  extremely  one-sided  and 


128  GOETHE. 

limited.  Nay,  Voltaire  makes  bold  to  say 
somewhere,  —  J'ai  toujours  remarqut  que  la 
Geometric  laisse  I' esprit  oil  elle  le  trouve.  And 
Franklin  distinctly  expresses  his  especial  aver- 
'sion  to  mathematicians  in  social  converse,  find- 
ing unbearable  their  pettiness  and  spirit  of  con- 
tradiction." 

Sending  Zelter,  in  1812,  the  second  part 
of  the  autobiography,  "  of  my  life,"  he  writes, 
"  freshened  up  or  warmed  up,  whichever  people 
may  choose  to  call  it,"  he  concludes  with  the 
following  confidential  declaration  :  "  How  much 
in  this  little  book  is  directly  addressed  to  you  ! 
Had  I  not  my  absent  friends  present  to  my 
mind,  where  should  I  get  the  mood  to  write 
such  things  ?  " 

The  friendly  relations  between  Goethe  and 
Zelter,  founded  on  sympathy  and  mutual  es- 
teem, which  had  subsisted  for  a  dozen  years, 
were  still  further  strengthened  through  an  inci- 
dent which  occurred  in  1812.  A  step-son  of 
Zelter  committed  suicide.  It  was  a  heavy  blow 
to  Zelter,  who  loved  the  young  man  as  though 
he  were  his  own.  The  day  after  the  act  he 
wrpte  to  Goethe  a  simple,  touching  account  of 
it,  finishing  with  these  words  :  "  No,  it  is  hard, 
cruel !  If  he  knew  how  I  loved  him,  he  could 
not  be  happy  where  he  now  is !  Say  to  me  a 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 29 

healing  word  ! "  How  was  this  tender  appeal 
answered  ?  Goethe  was  not  a  man  of  phrases. 
In  the  Diary  he  says  :  "  Through  all  my  life  I 
have  guarded  myself  against  nothing  so  firmly 
as  against  empty  words  ;  and  a  phrase  in  which 
there  is  nothing  individually  thought  or  felt  is 
to  me,  in  others  unbearable,  in  myself  impossi- 
ble." To  Zelter  he  wrote  a  long  letter,  one  of 
his  longest,  of  which  I  translate  the  opening 
paragraphs,  less  than  one  third  of  the  whole. 
A  letter  of  condolence  of  Goethe,  then  in  his 
sixty-third  year,  to  one  who,  with  literal  truth, 
may  be  called  an  intimate  friend,  will  be  worth 
keeping.  What  warmth  there  is  under  its 
calmness,  and  withal  how  judicious.  Thou,  in 
German,  whether  written  or  spoken,  is  a  mark 
o.f  affection  :  it  comes  warm  from  the  nursery, 
is  used  by  parents  towards  children,  between 
brothers  and  sisters.  Goethe  used  it  to  some 
of  the  companions  and  correspondents  of  his 
younger  days.  It  is  not  exchanged  between 
him  and  Schiller,  genuine  and  cordial  as  were 
their  personal  relations.  But  now,  out  of  the 
fullness  of  his  sympathy,  he  seals  a  bond  of 
friendship  of  some  years'  standing  with  this  en- 
dearing form  of  address  towards  one  whom  he 
had  first  known  after  himself  was  past  fifty. 
The  sturdy  Zelter  counted  upon  this  letter  ; 


130  GOETHE. 

when  it  came  into  his  hands  he  felt  that  now 
he  should  have  soothing  words,  such  as  no 
other  could  give  him.  But  what  must  have 
been  the  joy  of  his  tender,  manly  heart  when 
he  read  the  first  word,  expressive  of  so  much, 
itself  a  consolation.  The  letter  is  dated  No- 
vember 3d,  1812. 

"  Thy  letter,  my  dear  friend,  which  announces 
to  me  the  great  affliction  that  has  come  upon 
thy  house,  found  me  engaged  in  very  earnest 
reflections  upon  life  :  it  has  much  dejected, 
nay,  bowed  me  down,  and  only  on  thee  have  I 
been  able  to  brace  myself  up  again.  On  the 
black  touchstone  of  death  thouhast  spread  thy- 
self like  refined  gold.  How  grand  is  a  charac- 
ter when  it  is  so  penetrated  with  soul,  and  how 
admirable  must  a  talent  be  which  rests  on  such 
a  ground  ! 

"  About  the  deed  or  misdeed  itself  I  know 
not  what  to  say.  When  the  tcedium  vita 
seizes  a  man,  he  is  only  to  be  pitied,  not  to  be 
reproached.  That  all  the  symptoms  of  this 
extraordinary  disease,  at  the  same  time  natural . 
and  unnatural,  once  raged  through  my  inmost 
being,  any  one  can  learn  from  WertJier.  I 
know  well  enough  what  resolutions  and  strug- 
gles it  then  cost  me  to  escape  from  the  billows 
of  death,  as  likewise  from  how  many  a  ship- 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 3 1 

wreck  I  have  since  with  difficulty  saved  myself 
and  painfully  recovered.  Just  the  same  are  all 
the  stories  of  seafarers  and  fishermen.  After 
the  night-storm  the  shore  is  regained,  and  the 
half-drowned  dries  himself,  and  the  next  morn- 
ing when  the  glorious  sun  again  steps  forth  on 
the  glittering  waves,  '  the  sea  has  its  old  appe- 
tite for  the  faint-hearted.' 

"  When  one  sees  how  the  world  generally, 
and  particularly  the  younger  portion  of  it,  is 
not  only  given  up  to  its  lusts  and  passions,  but 
how  at  the  same  time,  by  the  earnest  follies 
of  the  times,  the  higher  and  better  in  them  is 
obstructed  and  wasted,  so  that  what  should 
lead  to  blessedness  becomes  damnation,  with- 
out taking  into  account  unspeakable  outward 
pressure,  —  when  we  see  this  we  no  longer 
wonder  at  misdeeds  whereby  man  outrages 
himself  and  others.  I  could  write  a  new  Wer- 
ther  which  should  make  people's  hair  stand  on 
end  even  more  stiffly  than  the  first  did.  Let  me 
add  one  more  remark.  Most  young  people  who 
feel  they  have  something  good  in  them,  make 
too  great  demands  upon  themselves.  To  this 
they  are  however  impelled  and  obliged  by  their 
gigantic  surroundings.  I  know  a  half  dozen 
such  who  are  sure  to  come  to  naught,  and 
whom  it  were  not  possible  to  help,  even  if  one 


132  GOETHE. 

could  make  them  understand  their  true  inter- 
est. Few  people  reflect  that  reason  and  a  brave 
will  are  given  us  in  order  that  we  hold  our- 
selves back  not  only  from  what  is  evil,  but  also 
from  excess  of  what  is  good." 

The  rest  of  the  letter  Goethe  devotes  to  top- 
ics such  as  were  ordinarily  exchanged  between 
them.  From  Zelter's  answer  I  copy  a  few 
lines  :  "  I  have  gained  while  I  lost,  and  believed 
that  I  should  hardly  recover  from  the  loss  ;  and 
so  life  stirs  within  me  again  with  manly  anima- 
tion, and  I  will  willingly  acknowledge  I  have 
felt  joy  once  more."  A  letter  written  a  month 
later,  acknowledging  one  just  received  from 
Goethe,  Zelter  thus  opens :  "  My  sweet  friend 
and  master  !  my  beloved,  my  brother  !  What 
shall  I  call  him  whose  name  is  ever  on  my 
tongue,  whose  image  is  reflected  in  all  that  I 
love  and  honor  !  When  the  Weimar  envelope 
comes  up  my  steps,  the  whole  house  is  illumi- 
nated. The  children  scramble  for  which  of 
them  shall  bring  it  to  me,  in  order  to  see  the 
father's  face  at  its  brightest,  and  I  then  hold  it 
long  unopened,  looking  at  it  to  see  if  it  is  what 
it  is." 

The  extracts  last  made  are  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  second  volume  of  the  letters  between 
Goethe  and  Zelter.  The  whole  correspondence 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 3  3 

fills  six  volumes  ;  and  from  them  might  be 
culled  many  pages  of  paragraphs  and  sentences 
deserving  to  be  memorable  for  their  wisdom,  or 
loaded  with  personal  significance,  or  beaming 
with  criticism  or  sentiment.  The  limits  im- 
posed by  the  scope  of  this  volume  oblige  me  to 
be  content  with  a  few  of  the  most  notable  pas- 
sages, which,  giving  a  rare  light  to  the  volumes, 
put  the  reader  in  closer,  clearer  contact  with 
the  mind  whence  the  light  issues. 

"  Art,  where  it  manifests  itself  through  the 
highest  Artist,  creates  a  form  so  powerfully 
vivid,  that  it  ennobles  and  transforms  any  ma- 
terial." 

"  State-Councilor  Hufeland  has  sent  me,  in 
the  name  of  Prince  Radzivil,  a  very  friendly  in- 
vitation to  Berlin  this  winter.  Such  expedi- 
tions are  becoming  more  and  more  impossible 
to  me.  I  should  be  a  burden  to  myself  and  to 
others.  My  well-being  demands  the  greatest 
evenness  in  living  and  enjoying."  May,  1816. 

"  I  have  learnt  immensely  from  Linneus, 
but  not  botany.  Except  Shakespeare  and 
Spinoza,  I  know  of  none  of  the  departed  who 
has  had  such  influence  upon  me." 

"  Nothing  is  more  natural  than  Nature, 
which  lies  ever  there  where  we  don't  look  :  we 
seek  the  horse  on  which  we  are  riding." 


134  GOETHE. 

"  Here  is  also  a  letter  from  my  mother, 
which  you  wished  to  see.  In  it,  as  in  every 
line  she  wrote,  shines  forth  the  character  of  a 
woman  who,  in  old-testamental  fear  of  God, 
lived  a  robust,  hearty  life,  full  of  trust  in  the 
people's  and  family's  God,  and  who,  when  she 
came  to  die,  gave  such  minute  orders  for  her 
own  funeral,  that  the  kind  of  wine  and  the  size 
of  the  hard-cake  wherewith  the  attendants 
were  to  be  refreshed,  were  exactly  prescribed." 

"  I  have  never  concealed  what  a  deadly 
enemy  I  am  to  all  parody  and  travesty,  but 
only  on  this  account  am  I  so,  because  this  base 
brood  pulls  down  the  noble,  the  beautiful,  the 
great,  in  order  to  annihilate  them." 

"  I  am  editing  my » correspondence  with 
Schiller,  from  1794  to  1805.  It  will  be  a  great 
gift  to  be  offered  to  the  Germans,  nay,  I  may 
say,  to  man.  Two  friends  of  that  kind,  who 
mutually  upraise  each  other  while  they  are 
ever  unbosoming  themselves  one  to  the  other. 
It  affects  me  strangely,  for  I  learn  what  I  once 
was. 

"  But  what  is  most  instructive  is  its  showing 
the  condition  of  two  men  who  pursue  their 
aims  as  it  were  by  compulsion,  and,  through 
inward  overactivity,  through  outward  excitation 
and  interruption,  split  up  their  time  ;  so  that, 


FRIENDSHIPS.  135 

after  all,  nothing  is  brought  to  pass  fully  worthy 
of  their  powers,  talents,  and  purposes.  It  will 
be  highly  edifying  ;  for  every  stout  fellow  will 
find  consolation  in  it." 

The  letter  from  which  the  above  extract  is 
made  was  written  in  1824.  The  last  paragraph 
expresses  a  mood,  not  a  fact.  At  an  earlier 
date,  and  at  the  earliest,  that  is,  during  the  life 
of  Schiller,  Goethe,  we  have  seen,  estimated 
differently,  and,  I  think,  far  more  justly,  the 
reciprocal  effect  of  their  relations  to  one  an- 
other. Now,  in  his  seventy-sixth  year,  reposing 
in  the  sunshine  of  his  elevation,  the  struggles 
of  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  looked  dark 
"with  the  smoke  and  dust  of  conflict,  as  he  read 
of  those  struggles  in  this  correspondence  ;  but 
those  very  conflicts  were  fuel  to  the  light  in 
which  he  now  basked.  In  Goethe's  rivalry  with 
Schiller  there  was  nothing  unwholesome.  It 
was  not  poisoned  by  envy,  it  was  not  distorted 
by  personal  resentment  ;  and  so,  it  did  not  lead 
to  false  aims  or  overstraining.  The  cordiality 
of  their  intercourse  kept  it  an  invigorating 
tonic.  It  helped  to  unfold  Goethe's  powers,  it 
did  not  force  or  misdirect  them  ;  and  without 
it  the  height  from  which  he  now  looked  serenely 
round  on  the  wide  domains  of  his  renown  would 
have  lacked  somewhat  of  its  eminence. 


136  GOETHE. 

Is  not  the  subjoined  passage  a  verbatim  re- 
port of  what,  only  the  other  evening,  we  all 
heard,  less  choicely  expressed,  from  the  plain- 
tive tongue  of  an  "  ultra  "  conservative  old  gen- 
tleman ?  Nevertheless,  it  is  found  in  a  letter  of 
Goethe  to  Zelter.  Pity  that  the  electric  tele- 
graph had  not  been  in  time  for  Goethe.  The 
beauty  and  scientific  grandeur  of  the  discovery 
might  have  reconciled  him  to  its  prosaic  uses, 
and  possibly  have  opened  his  eyes  more  hope- 
fully towards  the  future  ;  for  here  the  triumph- 
ant marriage  of  the  aspiring  thought  of  man 
with  deep,  susceptible  nature  is  even  more 
momentous  as  prophecy  than  as  fulfillment. 
The  letter  is  dated  June  6th,  1825. 

"  But,  my  dear  friend,  everything  is  now 
ultra ;  in  thinking  and  in  acting  every  one 
•rushes  on  headlong.  No  man  knows  himself 
any  more,  no  one  understands  the  element  in 
which  he  moves  and  works.  Of  true  simplicity 
there  is  no  longer  any  question  ;  of  silly  stuff, 
called  simple,  there  is  plenty. 

"Young  people  are  set  agoing  much  too 
early,  and  are  then  swept  into  the  whirlpool  of 
the  times.  Riches  and  swiftness  are  what  the 
world  most  admires,  and  for  which  every  one 
strives.  Railroads,  fast  coaches,  steamboats, 
and  all  possible  facilities  of  communication, 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 3  7 

these  are  what  engross  the  more  cultivated 
classes,  in  order  to  over-cultivate  themselves 
and  thereby  to  get  no  further  than  mediocrity. 
And  one  of  the  results  of  generality  is,  that  a 
medium  culture  is  common  ;  thither  tend  Bible- 
societies  and  Lancastrian  school-methods,  and 
I  know  not  how  much  else. 

"  This  century  is  for  the  clever  heads,  for 
quick-witted,  practical  men,  who,  endowed  with 
a  certain  activity,  feel  their  superiority  over  the 
crowd,  although  they  are  not  gifted  for  the 
highest." 

Here  is  a  critical  precept  well  worth  reiterat- 
ing :  "  Whoever  would  gain  the  right  road 
must  have  faith  in  simplicity,  in  the  simple,  in 
the  primitively  productive.  To  do  this  is  how- 
ever not  given  to  every  one  ;  we  are  born  into 
an  artificial  condition,  and  it  is  much  easier  to 
make  this  more  artificial  than  to  turn  back  to 
the  simple." 

Of  rarely  gifted  writers,  of  those  with  highest 
and  fullest  endowment,  it  is  a  characteristic, 
that  in  their  best  outgivings  they  are  at  once 
general  and  specific.  Thus,  the  chief  person- 
ages of  Goethe's  dramas  and  narrative  fictions 
combine  mostly  breadth  with  individuality : 
they  are  neither  grandly  vague  nor  pettily 
limited.  While  distinctly  individual,  they  are 


138  GOETHE. 

symbolical,  and  hence  they  are  poetical.  And 
this  virtue  belongs  to  most  of  Goethe's  writings. 
His  mind  being  very  true  and  very  full,  a  short 
poem,  a  paragraph,  a  sentence,  will  often  be 
laden  with  a  meaning  and  applications  far  be- 
yond its  mere  occasion.  In  a  letter  of  1830  he 
complains  to  Zelter  that  "  Good,  well-meaning, 
sensible  people  wish  to  take  my  poems  to 
pieces,  regarding  it  to  be  indispensable  that 
they  get  hold  of  the  most  special  facts  out  of 
which  they  grew  ;  instead  of  which  they  should 
be  content  that  a  poem  has  so  raised  the  spe- 
cial up  to  the  general  that  they  can  easily  take 
it  into  their  own  individuality." 

Only  eleven  days  before  his  death  Goethe 
wrote  to  Zelter  his  last  letter,  dated  March 
nth,  1832.  Zelter's  last  to  Goethe  was  dated 
March  22d,  the  day  of  Goethe's  death.  Chan- 
cellor Mueller  announced  to  Zelter  the  death 
of  his  great  friend.  On  the  3ist  Zelter  con- 
cludes a  letter  of  acknowledgment  to  the  Chan- 
cellor with  these  words  :  "  Pardon  me,  noble 
friend  !  I  ought  not  to  complain,  but  my  old 
eyes  will  not  obey.  I  once  saw  him,  too,  weep  : 
that  must  be  my  justification."  Two  years 
earlier,  Zelter,  referring  to  some  legal  arrange- 
ments between  them,  by  which  Zelter  wished 
to  provide  that  his. share  of  the  proceeds  from 


FRIENDSHIPS.  1 3  9 

the  publication  hereafter  of  their  correspond- 
ence should  go  to  his  two  unmarried  daughters, 
ends  the  paragraph  as  follows :  "  I  write  this 
with  some  emotion,  as  I  cannot  conceal  from 
myself,  that  one  of  us  two  will  find  himself  here 
alone,  while  I  would  wish  to  be  where  thou  art 
and  to  go  where  thou  goest."  And  his  wish 
was  fulfilled.  As  though  the  earth  had  lost  for 
him  its  daily  charm  when  Goethe  had  gone 
from  it,  he  followed  him  in  a  few  weeks. 

Many  of  Goethe's  friends  survived  him,  and 
among  them  deserve  especially  to  be  men- 
tioned three  in  Weimar,  Riemer  and  Eckerman, 
his  two  secretaries,  and  Chancellor  Mueller. 
All  three  have  left  records  of  their  intercourse 
with  Goethe  which  are  of  rare  value  as  bio- 
graphical data,  all  three  being  intelligent,  culti- 
vated men  of  high  character.  That  the  remi- 
niscences or  minutes  of  such  men,  with  their 
intimate  opportunities  through  a  long  series  of 
years,  should  glow,  in  rivalry  of  one  another, 
with  devotion  and  admiration,  is  but  corrobora- 
tive testimony  as  to  the  solid  worth  as  well  as 
personal  attractiveness  there  was  in  the  one 
object  of  their  unique  homage. 


V. 

LOVES. 

As  to  his  feelings  man  is  an  exquisite  instru- 
ment, thrilled  by  a  breath  or  a  touch  from  with- 
out or  from  within.  The  poet  is  poet  only 
because  he  is  more  finely  strung  than  other 
men,  and  thence  more  capable  of  the  heart's 
music.  Especially  is  he  more  liable  to  myste- 
rious, unbidden  motions  from  the  interior  self. 
More  imaginative,  because  fuller  of  illuminated 
sensibility,  which  adds  a  so  "  precious  seeing  to 
the  eye,"  the  poet  both  gives  more  to,  and  takes 
more  from,  the  object  of  his  feeling  ;  and  thence 
in  him  joys  and  griefs  work  livelier  than  in  men 
less  genially  endowed.  The  attractions  that  to 
life  give  beauty  and  very  being,  draw  him  more 
magnetically. 

The  primal,  paramount  attraction,  the  love  of 
man  for  woman,  of  woman  for  man,  the  parental 
source  of  all  other  attractions,  the  central  fire, 
in  whose  creative  glow  dance  in  embryo  all  the 
passions  and  powers  of  humanity,  to  this  great 
attraction,  irresistible,  next  to  omnipotent,  the 


LOVES.  141 

poet  should  be  peculiarly  susceptible,  he  who, 
through  a  keener  consciousness  of  life,  a  clearer 
light  of  soul,  is  the  privileged  interpreter  of  the 
heart  and  its  world  of  loves.  And  that  he  is 
thus  susceptible  the  lives  and  writings  of  most 
of  the  greater  poets  prove.  Be  the  biograph- 
ical traditions  about  Shakespeare  true  or  not, 
from  his  works  we  know  how  strong  in  him  was 
the  sexual  feeling,  —  that  feeling  so  pure  and 
precious  in  its  healthy  play,  so  foul  and  baleful 
in  its  perversion.  In  Goethe  it  was  equally 
strong. 

Goethe's  first  love  does  not  fall  at  so  early  a 
period  as  Dante's.  He  was  nearly  fifteen  when 
he  met  with  Gretchen.  His  poetical  gift  it 
was  that  brought  him  in  contact  with  Gretchen. 
Already  he  wrote  verses,  and  the  circulation  of 
these  by  a  young  friend  led  to  companionship 
with  some  youths  below  him  in  the  social  scale 
of  Frankfort.  At  one  of  these  gatherings  in  a 
kind  of  restaurant,  the  wine  having  given  out, 
call  was  made  for  the  serving-maid.  Instead 
of  by  her  the  call  was  answered  by  a  girl  with  a 
most  graceful  figure,  delicate  neck,  exquisite 
mouth,  whose  beauty  and  bearing  so  fascinated 
the  boy-bard  that  her  image  haunted  him  from 
that  hour.  Goethe  draws  a  living  picture  of 
this  humble,  lovely  girl,  who  gave  him  good  ad- 


142  GOETHE. 

vice  as  to  the  company  he  was  then  keeping, 
who  bore  herself  always  with  modesty  and  self- 
respect,  who  would  not  allow  him  or  any  of 
them  to  touch  her  or  even  shake  hands  with 
her,  but  who,  while  he  would  be  reading  aloud 
one  of  his  pieces,  would  gently  put  her  arm  on 
his  shoulder  and  look  over  his  paper,  the  woman 
evidently  pleased  with  the  handsome  gifted  boy, 
and,  woman-like,  honestly  enjoying  her  fasci- 
nation over  him.  Goethe  carried  with  him 
through  life  the  sweet  memory  of  Gretchen. 
Besides  the  immortality  she  shares  with  others 
in  the  Autobiography,  her  name  is  burned  into 
the  most  pathetic  pages  of  Faust. 

In  the  midst  of  his  account  of  this  affair, 
Goethe  thus  opens  a  paragraph  :  "  The  first 
love-motions  of  an  uncorrupted  youth  take  an 
entirely  spiritual  direction.  Nature  seems  to 
wish  that  one  sex  shall  become  through  the 
other  sensuously  aware  of  the  good  and  the  beau- 
tiful. And  so  to  me,  through  the  beholding  of 
this  girl,  and  my  love  for  her,  was  opened  a 
new  world  of  the  beautiful  and  the  excellent." 

Gretchen  was  suddenly  snatched  from  his 
sight  forever.  Several  of  the  jovial  circle  were 
suspected  of  petty  crimes  and  were  arrested. 
Gretchen  was  fully  acquitted,  but  left  Frank- 
fort. Goethe  had  the  mortification  of  being1 


LOVES.  143 

examined  as  a  comrade  of  the  criminals,  and, 
what  to  a  love-sick  youth  was  a  far  deeper 
mortification,  he  had  to  hear  that  Gretchen, 
when  questioned  as  to  her  relations  with  him, 
had  stated  that  she  looked  upon  him  as  a  boy, 
and  felt  towards  him  only  as  a  sister.  Never- 
theless, his  young  heart  had  to  suffer  for  a  time 
those  sweet  love-pangs  wherewith  it  was  his  lot 
to  be  often  visited  all  through  youth  and  man- 
hood, and  even  into  his  old  age. 

At  this  early  season,  love,  the  love  for  woman, 
was  an  unusually  active  element  of  Goethe's 
being  ;  perhaps,  in  one  so  richly  organized,  a 
requisite  stimulant  to  his  mental  growth.  He 
had  not  been  long  at  Leipzig  ere  the  place  in 
his  heart  first  held  by  Gretchen  was  filled  by 
Kaetchen  Schoenkopf,  the  daughter  of  respect- 
able parents  in  whose  house  he  was  domes- 
ticated as  a  boarder.  Is  there  a  melody  in 
these  two  conjoined  words,  or  does  her  name 
catch  a  music  from  its  immortality,  as  being 
that  of  one  who  loved  and  was  beloved  by  the 
student  Goethe,  whose  name  therefore  is  to  be 
handed  down  through  the  ages,  each  successive 
generation  freshening  the  sound  with  its  inter- 
est and  sympathy  ? 

It  looks  as  though  Nature  designed  that  at 
that  blossoming  period  Goethe  should  learn 


144  GOETHE. 

more  from  the  love  and  companionship  of 
women  than  from  those  whom  his  father  sent 
him  to  Leipzig  to  learn  from,  the  Professors  in 
the  Faculty  of  Law.  The  current  however  of 
his  love  for  Kaetchen  did  not  always  run 
smooth,  of  which  probably  Goethe  was  more 
the  cause  than  she.  Soon  after  his  return  to 
Frankfort  he  had  to  learn  of  her  engagement 
to  one  whom  he  had  introduced  to  her.  This 
was  a  trial.  There  never  had  been  a  prospect 
of  marriage  between  them  :  she  was  three  years 
older  than  Goethe,  and  he  was  still  a  boy  :  but 
love,  —  unless  it  reach  the  highest  spiritual 
phase,  —  is  ever  an  appropriator,  and  in  such  a 
case  looks  upon  itself  as  robbed.  Hence  the 
extremities  and  crimes  of  jealousy.  But  to- 
wards his  Kaetchen  Goethe  was  wise  and  gen- 
erous. In  his  last  letter  to  her  he  said  :  "  That 
I  live  peacefully  is  all  that  I  can  say  to  you  of 
myself,  and  vigorously,  and  healthily,  and  in- 
dustriously, for  I  have  no  woman  in  my  head. 
Horn  and  I  are  still  good  friends  ;  but,  so  it 
happens  in  the  world,  he  has  his  thoughts  and 
ways,  and  I  have  my  thoughts  and  ways,  and  so 
a  week  passes  and  we  scarcely  see  each  other 
once.  But,  everything  considered,  I  am  at  last 
tired  of  Frankfort,  and  at  the  end  of  March 
I  shall  leave  it.  I  must  not  yet  go  to  you,  I 


LOVES.  145 

perceive  ;  for  if  I  came  at  Easter  you  could  not 
be  married.  And  Kaetchen  Schoenkopf  I  will 
not  see  again,  if  I  am  not  to  see  her  otherwise 
than  so.  At  the  end  of  March,  therefore,  I 
go  to  Strasbourg  ;  if  you  care  to  know  that,  as 
I  believe  you  do." 

When  the  body  and  mind  are  in  the  quick 
ferment  of  growth,  between  the  ages  of  fifteen 
and  twenty,  there  is  not  yet  depth  of  soil  or 
steadiness  of  motion  enough  for  the  great  pas- 
sion to  take  strong  and  fast  hold  :  its  wounds 
are  healed  and  covered  by  rapidity  of  expan- 
sion. If  Frederica  was  not  the  first  love  of 
Goethe  she  was  the  first  love  of  the  man, 
Goethe.  He  was  turned  of  twenty  when  he 
went  to  Strasbourg.  Had  Goethe  first  met 
Frederika  in  the  city  of  Strasbourg,  the  wo'rld 
would  probably  have  lacked  the  most  beautiful 
love-idyl  ever  penned,  and  which  draws  its 
beauty  and  effectiveness  from  its  reality,  the 
poet  relating,  as  only  poet  can  relate,  a  true  story 
—  his  own  story.  The  secluded  country  parson- 
age at  Sesenheim,  the  hearty  smiles  of  hospi- 
tality, the  sudden  illumination  of  a  rural  house- 
hold by  infrequent  visitors,  the  very  isolation  of 
the  simple-minded  family  and  its  limitation  to 
the  pastor  and  his  two  daughters,  all  this  made 
a  propitious  environment  and  accompaniment, 


146  GOETHE. 

and  gave  a  bloom  to  Frederika's  cheek  and  a 
sparkle  to  her  innocent  eye,  which  helped  not 
a  little  to  captivate  a  young  poet.  It  is  a 
touching  testimony  to  the  vividness  of  the 
memory  Goethe  retained  of  Frederika,  that, 
when  dictating  to  his  secretary,  more  than  forty 
years  after  the  event,  his  account  of  it,  he  was 
unusually  affected,  stopped  often  in  his  walk  up 
and  down  the  room,  paused  in  the  dictation, 
and  then  after  a  silence,  ending  in  a  deep  sigh, 
continued  the  narrative  in  a  lower  tone. 

Why  did  Goethe  not  marry  Frederika? 
This  question  may  be  quickly  and  reproachfully 
answered  by  the  hasty,  or  the  thoughtless,  or 
the  ill-disposed.  The  well-disposed  will  recall 
the  golden  precept,  Judge  not,  or  as  Goethe 
says,  with  a  totally  different  reference,  in  one 
of  his  letters  to  Frau  von  Stein :  "  Judge  not 
until  you  have  stood  in  his  place."  And  it  is 
not  easy  to  put  one's  self  in  the  place  of  Goethe. 
Not  half  of  the  love-affairs  among  the  youth 
of  Christendom  end  in  marriage.  Human  des- 
tinies are  not  spun  off  so  smoothly.  Exter- 
nally all  things  may  seem  to  fit,  melted  to  closer 
fitness  by  mutual  affection,  as  in  this  case  ;  and 
yet,  behind  the  apparent  circumstances  which 
all  urge  marriage,  there  may  lie  effectual,  unap- 
parent  influences  which  forbid  it,  especially  in 


LOVES.  147 

deep  prolific  natures  like  Goethe's.  Enough 
that  we  have  the  fact  that  Goethe  did  not  marry 
Frederika.  I  shall  not  be  the  one  to  have  the 
absurd  audacity  to  thrust  my  posthumous  wish 
against  the  recorded  judgment  of  Providence. 
I  will  not  be  guilty,  even  in  thought,  of  the  im- 
pertinence to  crumple  up,  —  like  an  indignant 
hand  an  offensive  note,  —  the  most  variably 
fruitful  life  that  Literature  possesses,  by  desir- 
ing to  give  another  direction  to  its  stream  so 
near  its  source. 

As  to  blaming  Goethe,  how  easy  that  is  we 
all  know  from  the  daily  practice  almost  every- 
body has  of  blaming  friends  and  neighbors,  and 
of  ordering  other  people's  affairs  to  our  own 
entire  satisfaction.  In  this  case  we  may  save 
ourselves  from  the  commonness  and  offense  of 
censure  by  listening  to  words  of  condemnation 
from  the  only  one  who  has  a  full  right  to  use 
them.  Goethe  thus  berates  himself :  "  Frede- 
rika's  answer  to  the  letter  in  which  I  had  bid- 
den her  adieu,  tore  my  heart.  I  now,  for  the 
first  time,  became  aware  of  her  bereavement, 
and  saw  no  possibility  of  alleviating  it.  She 
was  ever  in  my  thoughts  ;  I  felt  that  she  was 
wanting  to  me  ;  and,  worst  of  all,  I  could  not 
forgive  myself!  Gretchen  had  been  taken 
from  me  ;  Annchen  had  left  me ;  but  now,  for 


148  GOETHE. 

the  first  time,  I  was  guilty  ;  I  had  wounded,  to 
its  very  depths,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
tender  of  hearts.  And  that  period  of  gloomy 
repentance,  bereft  of  the  love  which  so  invig- 
orated me,  was  agonizing,  insupportable.  But 
man  will  live,  and  hence  I  took  a  sincere  inter- 
est in  others,  seeking  to  disentangle  their  em- 
barrassments, and  to  unite  those  about  to  part, 
that  they  might  not  feel  what  I  felt.  Hence  I 
got  the  name  of  the  '  Confidant,'  and  also,  on 
account  of  my  wanderings,  I  was  named  the 
-  Wanderer.'  Under  the  broad,  open  sky,  on 
the  heights  and  in  the  valleys,  in  the  fields  and 
through  the  woods,  my  mind  regained  some  of 
its  calmness.  I  almost  lived  on  the  road,  wan- 
dering between  the  mountains  and  the  plains. 
Often  I  went,  alone  or  in  company,  right 
through  my  native  city,  as  though  I  were  a 
stranger  in  it,  dining  at  one  of  the  great  inns 
in  the  High  Street,  and  after  dinner  pursuing 
my  way.  I  turned  more  than  ever  to  the  open 
world  and  to  Nature  ;  there  alone  I  found  com- 
fort. During  my  walks  I  sang  to  myself 
strange  hymns  and  dithyrambs.  One  of  these, 
the  Wanderers  Sturmlied,  still  remains.  I  re- 
member singing  it  aloud  in  an  impassioned 
style  amid  a  terrific  storm.  The  burden  of  this 
rhapsody  is,  that  a  man  of  genius  must  walk 


LOVES.  149 

resolutely  through  the  storms  of   life,  relying 
solely  on  himself." 

Here  is  a  translation,  not  of  the  Wanderer  s 
Stormsong,  which  is  rather  long  for  insertion 
here,  but  of  that  other  brief,  grand  Wanderer  s 
Nightsong,  which  was  written  at  this  or  some 
similar  period  of  tumultuous  unrest :  — 

Thou  who  dost  in  heaven  bide, 

Every  pain  and  sorrow  stillest, 
Him  whom  twofold  woes  betide 

With  a  twofold  solace  fillest, 
O,  this  tossing,  let  it  cease  ! 

What  means  all  this  pain,  unrest  ? 
Soothing  peace  ! 

Come,  O,  come  into  my  breast ! 

How  many  a  Frederika,  before  and  since, 
has  bloomed  and  loved  in  rural  retirement  (or 
in  urban  privacy),  her  love  serving  only  to  un- 
fold the  girl  into  the  woman,  its  warm  prophe- 
cies doomed  to  exhale  in  sighs,  she  living  un- 
wedded,  her  story  unbruited  and  unknown, 
while  the  pangs  of  the  pastor  of  Sesenheim's 
daughter  have  ever  the  sympathy  of  the  most 
cultivated  hearts  in  Christendom,  a  sympathy 
so  close  that  many  have  to  brace  them  with  the 
divine  precept,  Judge  not,  to  keep  off  hard 
thoughts  about  him  to  whose  genius  we  solely 
owe  our  tender,  purifying  participation  in  her 
tears.  What  a  shrewd  thrust  that  is  of  Lewes 


I5O  GOETHE. 

at  the  close  of  his  Sesenheim  chapter  :  "  And 
so  farewell  Frederika,  bright  and  exquisite 
vision  of  a  poet's  youth  !  We  love  you,  pity 
you,  and  think  how  differently  we  should  have 
treated  you  !  " 

The  fact,  affirmed  to  be  indubitable,  that  not 
many  months  after  the  departure  of  Goethe, 
Frederika  exchanged  vows  with  Lenz,  a  friend 
of  Goethe,  will  be  learnt  with  pleasure  or  with 
pain,  according  to  the  age,  temperament,  and, 
in  most  cases,  sex  of  the  reader.  In  him  the 
wound  seems  to  have  been  deeper  than  in  her. 
But  they  had  the  satisfaction  of  meeting  eight 
years  later  with  most  kindly  feelings  on  both 
sides,  there  being  no  troublesome  traces  left  in 
either  of  their  youthful  love. 

Goethe's  father,  now  that  his  son  was  Doctor 
farts,  being  determined  to  make  a  thorough 
lawyer  of  him,  -sent  him  to  Wetzlar,  that  he 
might  gain  some  insight  into  the  practice  at 
what  was  then  the  great  Chancery  of  all  Ger- 
many, where  twenty  thousand  cases  still  waited 
decision,  some  of  which  had  been  in  court  a 
century  and  a  half.  As  at  Strasbourg  Goethe 
had  busied  himself  not  much  with  law,  but  with 
Gothic  Architecture,  Bayle,  Giordano  Bruno, 
waltzing,  fencing,  Faust,  Herder,  Goetz,  Shake- 
speare and  Frederika,  so  at  Wetzlar  he  followed 


LOVES.  151 

too  the  instinct  of  his  expanding  faculties, 
helped  his  friend  Gotter  to  translate  Gold- 
smith's Deserted  Village,  published  short  poems 
in  Boie's  Annual,  and  fell  in  love  with  Char- 
lotte Buff.  Charlotte  was  already  engaged  to 
another.  At  the  same  time  there  resided  in 
Wetzlar,  secretary  to  one  of  the  legations,  a 
young  man  named  Jerusalem,  of  melancholy 
moods  and  a  theoretical  defender  of  suicide. 
Jerusalem  was  in  love  with  the  wife  of  one  of 
his  friends ;  and  this  unhappy  passion,  aggra- 
vating a  natural  morbidness,  led  him  to  shoot 
himself.  Out  of  his  own  and  Jerusalem's  still 
more  unfortunate  passion,  together  with  the 
generally  unhealthy,  rebellious  feeling  of  the 
times,  Goethe  created  Werther, —  Wcrtlier,  a 
titanic  shriek  in  the  desert  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  —  so  full  of  Goethe,  Goethe  the  un- 
tamed, so  full  of  pictures,  of  pathos,  of  poetry, 
and  so  full  of  heart  and  of  wise  insights. 

He  tore  himself  away  from  Wetzlar  and 
Charlotte.  A  characteristic  of  Goethe  \vas  a 
demand  for  sensuous  presence  in  the  object  of 
his  interest.  He  required  personally  to  feel, 
or  to  have  felt,  a  passion  or  emotion  in  order  to 
represent  it  poetically.  And  the  range  of  his 
representations  is  so  wide  because  the  gamut 
of  his  sensibilities  was  so  full  and  fine.  Cer- 


152  GOETHE. 

tain  passions  and  conjunctions  had  not  been 
deeply  experienced  because  they  had  been  re- 
sisted. Near  enough  he  had  calmly  stood  to 
be  singed  by  the  flame  and  smoke  of  volcanoes, 
whose  craters  he  would  not  explore  to  the  bot- 
tom ;  he  had  gazed  into  abysses  whose  depths 
he  withheld  himself  from  sounding.  To  the 
poet  this  was  enough  :  it  gave  him  a  clear  right 
of  usufruct.  He  could  not  rest  until  he  had 
seen  Italy,  and  had  stood  face  to  face  with  its 
bays  and  mountains,  its  sun  and  moon,  and  its 
marvels  of  Art.  His  imagination  asked  for 
solid  stuff,  palpitating  reality,  out  of  which  to 
shape  its  creations :  it  could  not  snatch  men 
and  women  from  the  air.  Both  the  perceptions 
and  the  affections  of  Goethe  were  keen  and 
strong  :  and  while  they  fed  his  larger  faculties 
of  thought  and  emotion,  they  upheld  and 
strengthened  each  the  other.  He  loved  a  per- 
son the  more  for  seeing  him  or  her :  presence 
bred  love,  and  love  throve  on  presence.  This, 
to  be  sure,  is  according  to  a  law  of  human  or- 
ganization :  out  of  sight,  out  of  mind  ;  but  in 
Goethe  the  law  found  exceptional  .exemplifica- 
tion. And  being,  from  the  wealth  of  his  sym- 
pathies and  vivacity  of  temperament,  very  im- 
pressible, new  objects  made  themselves  readily 
welcome.  By  no  means  were  the  old  lost  or 


LOVES.  153 

effaced,  but  for  the  moment  their  place  was  sup- 
plied. Add  to  this  his  joyousness,  his  activity 
of  intellect,  his  practical  sense,  his  self-control, 
and  we  can  understand  how  he  could,  in  most 
cases,  inwardly  master  what  he  felt  ought  to  be 
mastered.  Thus,  when  on  quitting  Wetzlar 
and  walking  down  the  Lahn,  he  paid  a  visit  in 
Coblenz  to  Frau  von  Laroche,  —  Wieland's 
earliest  love,  —  the  black  eyes  and  other  charms 
of  her  daughter,  Maximiliane  (the  future  mother 
of  Bettina  Brentano)  consoled  him  wonderfully 
for  the  loss  of  Charlotte. 

On  his  return  to  Frankfort  he  threw  himself 
upon  Literature  and  Art  and  upon  Law,  the 
last  to  the  delight  of  his  father,  who,  in  amaze- 
ment at  the  multiplicity  of  his  son's  occupa- 
tions and  devotions,  spoke  of  him  as  "  this  sin- 
gular creature  ; "  but  to  the  completeness  of 
Goethe's  daily  being  a  "  maiden "  was  essen- 
tial. In  one  of  the  earlier  letters  of  Werther 
he  exclaims  :  "  To  the  heart  what  is  the  world 
without  love  ?  What  a  magic  lantern  is  with- 
out its  light."  Love  lifted  him,  not  above  the 
earth  :  by  no  means  ;  but  high  enough  to  float 
him  over  the  prosaisms  and  platitudes  of  week- 
day life.  He  writes  to  his  friend  Kestner,  the 
betrothed  of  Charlotte:  "Tell  Lotte  (Char- 
lotte) there  is  a  certain  maiden  here  whom  I 


154  GOETHE. 

love  heartily,  and  whom  I  would  choose  above 
all  others  if  I  had  any  thought  of  marriage." 
This  refers  to  Anna  Antoinette  Gerock,  then 
only  fifteen.  Again  he  writes  to  Kestner : 
"  Yesterday  I  skated  from  sunrise  to  sunset. 
And  I  have  other  sources  .of  joy  which  I  can't 
relate.  Be  comforted  that  I  am  almost  as 
happy  as  people  who  love,  like  you  two,  that  I 
am  as  full  of  hope,  and  that  I  have  lately /<?# 
some  poems.  My  sister  greets  you,  my  maiden 
also  greets  you,  my  gods  greet  you." 

Goethe  was  attracted  to  the  buds  of  woman- 
hood. Was  it  that  "  sweet  sixteen  "  is  more 
fragrant  with  the  poetry  of  feminine  beauty  ? 
By  successive  attachments  to  fresh,  unformed 
girls  he  became  charged  with  this  poetry.  From 
his  twentieth  to  his  twenty-fifth  year  Goethe's 
heart  was  busied  and  charmed  and  warmed  by 
the  constant  presence  in  it  of  one  or  other 
lovely,  innocent  young  creature :  Frederika, 
Charlotte,  Maximiliane,  Antoinette,  Lili.  It  is 
a  striking,  significant  phenomenon.  It  denotes 
healthiness  of  feeling,  if  nothing  more.  The 
images  of  these  tender  girls  sweetened  the  im- 
agination of  the  expanding  poet.  Constancy 
is  not  always  a  virtue  ;  and  if  it  were,  it  were 
one  with  which  some  excellent  people  are  not 
born.  If  the  capacity  to  harbor  so  many  loves 


LOVES.  155 

in  succession  in  one  heart,  proves  rather  that 
heart's  inconstancy  than  its  largeness,  it  is  at 
least  a  presumption  of  its  purity. 

She  who  in  the  autobiography  is  called  Lili, 
was  a  pretty,  graceful  blonde,  the  daughter  of  a 
rich  Frankfort  banker.  Goethe,  being  already 
a  man  of  note  (he  had  just  published  Wertker, 
and  Goetz  von  Berlichingen  shortly  before),  was 
a  seductive  mark  for  the  sparkling  looks  of  a 
fashionable  debutante.  Lili's  attempt  to  flirt 
with  Goethe  resulted  in  her  becoming  so  in- 
terested in  him,  that  later,  when  the  families  on 
both  sides  pertinaciously  opposed  the  match, 
she  is  said  to  have  offered  to  go  with  him  to 
America.  In  such  an  attempt  there  was  more 
than  the  usual  danger  ;  for  the  great,  lustrous 
eyes  of  Goethe  shone  from  a  countenance  of 
rare  manly  beauty,  and  from  his  fluent  tongue 
flowed  what  to  the  other  sex  is  peculiarly  fas- 
cinating, the  speech  of  a  glowing,  imaginative 
mind,  and  this,  backed  by  bounding  animal 
spirits,  an  imposing  presence,  and  the  magnet- 
ism of  genius  :  a  combination  formidable  in 
itself,  and  which  became  irresistible  when  forti- 
fied by  the  attraction  women  feel  towards  one 
whose  delight  in  woman  and  in  beauty  flushed 
his  whole  bearing  and  drew,  out  of  him  his 
best. 


I$5  GOETHE. 

How  fortunate  for  posterity  that  from  his 
boyhood  to  his  latest  years  Goethe  was  so 
copious  a  correspondent.  Here,  in  a  letter  to 
Augusta  von  Stolberg,  is  a  picture  of  himself 
at  the  height  of  his  Lili-fever  :  "  If  you  can 
imagine  a  Goethe  in  braided  coat,  from  head  to 
foot  in  the  gallantest  costume,  amid  the  glare 
of  chandeliers,  fastened  to  the  card-table  by  a 
pair  of  bright  eyes,  surrounded  by  all  sorts  of 
people,  driven  to  endless  dissipation  from  con- 
cert to  ball,  and  with  frivolous  interest  making 
love  to  a  pretty  blonde,  then  will  you  have  a 
picture  of  the  present  Carnival-Goethe." 

Goethe  once  related  how,  over  a  friend  of  his, 
on  the  way  to  church,  seated  by  his  betrothed, 
there  suddenly  came  such  a  dread,  that  he 
ordered  the  carriage  to  turn  back.  The  cere- 
mony and  contract  that  awaited  him  in  the 
church  loomed  upon  him  so  formidably  that  he 
recoiled  from  facing  them.  When  in  his 
seventy-seventh  year  Goethe  wrote  this  to 
Zelter,  was  he  casting  his  thought  back  more 
than  half  a  century,  and  embodying  in  a  pointed 
story  his  own  feelings  ?  Between  him  and  Lili 
it  went  so  far  that  they  became  engaged.  Still, 
the  opposition  of  their  families  was  scarcely 
relaxed  ;  and  the  opposition  triumphed,  having, 
doubtless,  a  powerful  secret  ally  in  what  seemed 


LOVES.  157 

an  instinct  of  Goethe  against  the  captivating 
bond.  The  giving  Lili  up  was  a  long  pang. 
He  tells  how,  after  the  rupture,  he  would 
wander  at  night  beneath  her  window.  Once 
she  was  singing  at  the  piano,  and  he  recognized 
the  words  of  a  song  he  had  written  to  her. 

But  Goethe  was  not  "  a  marrying  man,"  and 
in  this  case  it  was  ^probably  well  that  he  was 
not ;  for,  unless  Lili  had  been  an  uncommonly 
clear-headed  and  sound-hearted  girl,  —  which 
does  not  appear,  —  she  would  not  have  escaped 
the  perverting  influences  of  unleavened,  unen- 
lightened opulence.  When  people  live  much 
more  on  money  than  on  mind,  —  as  rich 
bankers,  poor  fellows,  are  obliged  mostly  to  do, 
—  their  natures  are  liable  to  get  belittled  and 
distorted  by  artificialities  and  frivolities  and 
ostentations.  Through  the  daily  pressure  of 
superfluous  wealth,  especially  sudden  wealth, 
the  whole  being  is  apt  to  get  contracted  and 
materialized  and  denaturalized.  In  our  present 
social  organization,  to  be  reared,  encircled  from 
childhood  by  all  the  facilities  and  temptations 
of  riches,  is  a  doom  for  which  people  should  be 
commiserated,  instead  of  being,  as  it  is  mostly 
regarded  to  be,  a  good  fortune  to  be  envied. 
For  Goethe  the  circle  of  a  rich  Frankfort 
banker  would  not  have  been  helpful. 


158  GOETHE. 

Five  years  later,  when  he  made  a  tour  with 
the  Duke  of  Weimar  and  visited  Frederika, 
Goethe  also  saw  Lili.  She  lived  in  Strasbourg, 
was  happily  married,  and,  her  mother  by  her 
side,  she  received  Goethe  with  a. baby  of  seven 
weeks  old  in  her  arms,  —  the  most  comfortable 
way  in  which  a  young  mother  can  receive  a 
past  admirer.  Lili,  no  doubt,  made  him  kiss 
the  baby. 

In  a  letter  to  Jacobi,  written  from  Weimar  in 
his  thirty-third  year,  Goethe,  referring  to  the 
past  ten  years  of  his  life,  says :  "  Here  I  am, 
dedicated  to  my  old  fate,  suffering  where  others 
enjoy  and  enjoying  where  others  suffer.  What 
I  have  gone  through  cannot  be  told.  When 
you  see  on  the  furnace  hearth  a  glowing  mass 
of  iron,  you  don't  think  of  the  dross  that  lies 
hidden  in  it,  and  which  only  shows  itself  when 
the  mass  comes  under  the  big  hammer.  It 
seems  as  if  a  "powerful  hammer  had  been  neces- 
sary to  free  my  nature  from  much  dross  and 
make  my  heart  pure.  And  how  much,  how 
much  that  is  perverse  sticks  in  it  yet." 

The  glowing  mass  had  to  bear  yet  many  a 
hammering.  The  richer  and  more  various  the 
mental  powers  are,  —  that  is,  the  powers  both 
of  head  and  heart,  —  the  more  tempering  they 
need  by  collisions.  Of  these  Goethe  had  more 


LOVES.  159 

than  the  common  share,  being  a  man  of  more 
than  common  sensibility,  throbbing  with  pas- 
sion and  sympathy  and  aspiration,  —  a  man  of 
action  as  well  as  a  student  and  poet,  practical 
and  outwardly  enterprising  as  well  as  thought- 
ful and  meditative  and  poetically  inventive. 

While  he  was  still  suffering  from  the  loss  of 
Lili  came  the  invitation  to  Weimar,  where,  as 
we  have  seen,  he  was  in  the  first  years  to  serve 
a  high  laborious  apprenticeship,  such  as  poet 
never  served  before  ;  and  where  lived  a  lady 
who  desired  to  know  him  and  whom  he  longed 
to  know. 

In  one  of  his  excursions  on  the  Rhine  in 
1774,  Goethe  fell  in  with  Dr.  Zimmerman  (the 
"  Zimmerman  on  Solitude  ")  who  showed  him 
a  portrait,  set  by  the  Doctor  in  such  encomiums 
of  the  original  that,  what  with  the  effect  of  the 
painter's  lines  and  color  and  the  Doctor's  rhap- 
sody, Goethe  is  said  to  have  been  sleepless  for 
three  nights.  Your  poetically  imaginative  man 
is  sometimes  more  moved  by  the  distant  than 
by  the  present* and  so  may  it  have  been  even 
with  Goethe.  The  three  sleepless  nights  are 
however  questionable,  or  even  one  :  that  must 
be  a  playful  extravagance  of  the  Doctor.  More- 
over, Goethe,  impressible  though  he  was,  was 
too  healthy,  physically  and  psychically  for  such 


l6o  GOETHE. 

effect  from  such  cause.  When  Frau  von  Stein 
(the  fascinating  portrait  was  of  her)  learnt  this 
from  Zimmerman,  she  wrote  that  she  would 
gladly  hear  more  of  Goethe,  and  should  like  to 
see  him. 

Frau  von  Stein,  wife  of  Baron  von  Stein, 
Master  of  the  Horse,  was  one  of  the  chief  ladies 
of  the  court.  She  was  a  woman  captivating 
from  her  appearance,  her  manners,  her  intelli- 
gence, her  accomplishments,  her  culture.  The 
mother  of  seven  children,  she  was  thirty-three 
years  of  age  when  Goethe  came  to  Weimar,  — 
six  or  seven  years  older  than  he  was.  Goethe 
arrived  in  Weimar  on  the  seventh  of  November, 

1775.  His  second  note  to  Frau  von  Stein  (the 
first  is  without  date)  is  of  the  third  of  January, 

1776.  On  the  twenty-eighth  he  writes  to  her  :  — 
"  Dear  Angel,  I  am   not  going  to   the  con- 
cert.   For  I  am  so  well  that  I  don't  wish  to  see 
the  crowd.     Dear  Angel,  I  sent  for  my  letters, 
and  it  pained  me  that  among  them  there  was 
not  a  word  from  thee,  not  a  word  in  pencil,  no 
good  evening.     Dear  lady,   suffer  me  to  love 
you  so  much.     When  I  can  love  any  one  more 
I   will   tell   thee :   will   leave   thee   unplagued. 
Adieu,    Gold.     Thou    understandst    not    how 
much  I  love  thee." 

With  all  the  fervor  of  his  nature  Goethe  gave 


LOVES.  l6l 

himself  up  to  this  new  passion.  The  calm, 
discreet,  self-possessing  object  of  it  knew  how 
to  keep  it  alive  without  letting  it  consume  him 
or  herself.  Frau  von  Stein  in  Weimar  did  for 
the  man  what  Frau  Boehme  in  Leipzig  did  for 
the  boy  :  she  tamed  his  wildness,  she  tempered 
his  exuberance.  Feminine  sympathy  was  al- 
ways a  need  with  Goethe,  and  here  he  had  it 
from  an  experienced,  cultivated,  fascinating 
woman  of  the  world,  older  than  himself.  That 
in  the  beginning  she  had  much  to  do  to  keep 
him  within  bounds,  the  following  note  from 
Goethe  on  the  fourteenth  of  April  shows  :  — 

"  Wherefore  should  I  worry  thee,  dearest 
creature !  Why  deceive  myself  and  plague 
thee,  and  so  forth.  We  can  be  nothing  to  one 
another,  and  are  too  much.  Believe  me,  were 
I  to  speak  with  perfect  openness  to  thee,  thou 
wouldst  in  all  agree  with  me.  But  just  because 
I  see  things  as  they  are,  that  sets  me  dis- 
tracted. Good  night,  dear  Angel,  and  good 
morning.  I  will  not  see  thee  again  —  only  — 
thou  knowest  all  —  I  have  my  heart  —  All  that 
I  could  say  is  naught.  Thenceforth  I  will  see 
thee  as  one  sees  the  stars  !  Think  of  that." 

Where  was  the  Baron  Stein,  the  father  of 
those  seven  children  ?  Well,  the  Baron  was 
hardly  at  home  once  in  a  week.  He  and  his 


1 62  GOETHE. 

wife  were  very  good  friends  ;  but  there  was  no 
love  lost  between  them.  At  that  period  there 
was  in  Germany  great  facility  and  frequency  of 
divorce.  It  is  related  that  one  evening,  in  a 
goodly  German  city,  at  a  large  card-party,  a 
lady  sat  down  to  a  table  with  three  husbands, 
one  in  possession  and  two  renounced,  the  four 
playing  together  a  very  amicable  game  of  whist. 
A  lady  friend  suggests  that  a  fourth  husband 
was  probably  hovering  round  the  table.  The 
story  is  representative,  even  if  it  be  not  ocu- 
larly true.  Such  being  the  state  of  law  and 
opinion  on  marriage,  Goethe  and  Frau  von 
Stein  might  have  come  together  as  man  and 
wife,  if  the  disparity  in  years  between  them 
had  been  reversed,  if  those  seven  children  of 
Stein  had  not  been  born  to  her,  and  other  ifs 
whose  contingencies  are  not  at  this  distance  of 
time  distinctly  discernible.  While  Goethe  was 
in  Italy,  ten  years  later,  there  was  a  report 
about  such  a  marriage,  mentioned  by  Schiller 
in  a  letter  to  Koerner  of  November  23d,  1787  : 
"  It  is  said  Goethe  will  remain  at  Naples, 
and  has  resigned  his  office.  He  wished  to 
marry  Frau  von  Stein,  and  demanded  a  title  of 
nobility  of  the  Duke  in  order  to  do  so.  Her 
family,  however,  opposed  it.  This  is  said  to 
have  disgusted  him  with  his  situation  and  with 
Weimar." 


LOVES.  163 

Several  months  before,  in  August,  Schiller 
had  written  as  follows  about  Frau  von  Stein  : 
"  A  truly  original  and  interesting  person  ;  and 
I  can  readily  understand  why  Goethe  is  so  de- 
voted to  her.  You  cannot  call  her  beautiful, 
but  her  face  has  an  earnest  and  frank  expres- 
sion which  is  charming.  She  is  a  person  of 
much  feeling  combined  with  great  common 
sense.  She  has  received  more  than  a  thousand 
letters  from  Goethe,  and  from  Italy  he  writes 
to  her  every  week.  It  is  said  that  the  connec- 
tion between  them  is  perfectly  pure  and  blame- 
less." That  the  relation  between  them  was  of 
this  character,  the  tone  and  substance  of 
Goethe's  letters  to  her  through  those  many 
years  go  to  confirm.  He  opens  one  of  his 
plaintive  missives  with  these  words :  "  And 
so  this  relation,  the  purest,  most  beautiful, 
truest,  that  I  ever  had  with  any  woman  except 
my  sister,  this  too  is  to  be  broken  up." 

What  would  one  not  give  for  only  half  a 
dozen  love-letters  of  Shakespeare  ?  From 
Goethe  we  have  more  than  a  thousand,  filling 
three  volumes.  The  title  of  the  volume  is, 
Goethe  s  Letters  to  Frau  von  Stein,  from  1776 
to  1826.  But  only  those  written  from  '76  to  '86 
can  properly  be  called  love-letters.  These  ten 
years,  to  be  sure,  occupy  two  and  a  half  of  the 


164  GOETHE. 

three  volumes.  Goethe  not  only  loved  Frau 
von  Stein,  he  enjoyed  her  society  intellectually. 
She  could  understand  him  :  he  could  be  confi- 
dential with  her,  and  be  sure  of  an  intelligent 
sympathy. 

The  larger  number  of  his  written  communi- 
cations to  her  are  notes,  many  of  them  very 
brief,  sometimes  in  pencil,  just  asking  how  she 
is,  sending  flowers  or  fruit  or  vegetables  ;  but 
the  shortest  ends  or  begins  with  words  of  en- 
dearment. One "  ends  :  "  Adieu  —  if  I  only 
could  live  without  loving."  In  the  middle  of 
another  he  comforts  himself  with  having  had 
"  glorious  hours  with  Wieland."  A  day  or  two 
afterwards,  July  24th,  1776,  he  writes  from  the 
mining  district  at  Ilmenau,  forty  miles  distant : 
"  Didst  thou  think  of  me  as  I  of  thee  !  No,  I 
will  not  have  it  so  !  will  feed  on  the  melancholy 
of  my  old  fate,  not  to  be  loved  where  I  love." 
A  fortnight  later,  still  in  Ilmenau,  he  writes  :  — 

"  Ah,  when  thou  art  near 
I  feel  I  ought  not  to  love  thee. 
Ah,  when  thou  art  far  away 
I  feel,  I  love  thee  so  much." 

And  in  the  same  letter  :  "  Dear  Angel !  I  have 
been  writing  on  my  Falcon.  My  Giovanna  will 
have  much  of  Lili  in  her  :  but  thou  wilt  allow 
me  to  pour  in  a  few  drops  of  thy  being,  just 


LOVES.  165 

enough  to  tinge  it.  Thy  relation  to  me  is  so 
holy,  singular,  that  I  now  for  the  first  time 
feel  it  cannot  be  expressed  with  words  :  people 
cannot  perceive  it." 

Frau  von  Stein,  the  most  distinguished 
woman  in  Weimar,  would  have  been  distin- 
guished anywhere.  A  token  of  this  was  the 
especial  friendliness  towards  her  of  the  Duke 
and  Duchess,  themselves  by  nature  both  so 
highly  gifted.  The  following  note  from  Goethe, 
February  2Oth,  1777,  shows  the  footing  on 
which  she  stood  with  the  Duke,  and  gives  an 
insight  into  the  easy,  simple  manners  of  Wei- 
mar at  that  period  :  "  I  have  advised  the  Duke 
to  dine  with  you  to-day  :  he  is  not  in  the  best 
spirits.  If  you  will  have  us,  we  will  come  to- 
wards one.  But  don't  have  any  formality. 
Herewith  I  send  old  wine.  Addio." 

A  year  later  Goethe  writes  to  her  :  "  It  is 
handsome  of  you  that  you  wish  to  feed  with 
preserved  fruit  him  whom  you  no  longer  love. 
•I  thank  you  for  it,  although  it  looks  as  though 
you  sent  me  good  things  in  order  that  I  may 
not  come  to  eat  them  with  you." 

In  the  spring  of  1778  Goethe  made  a  journey 
with  the  Duke  to  Leipzig  and  Dessau.  The 
following  is  the  close  of  a  letter  written  from 
Woerlitz :  "  I  perceive  that  with  men  I  have  far 


1 66  GOETHE. 

less  intercourse  than  formerly.  And  I  seem  to 
get  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  goal  of  the  dra- 
matic, as  I  get  clearer  insight  into  how  the 
great  play  with  men,  and  the  Gods  with  the 
great.  Adieu.  Don't  fail  to  write  to  me  to 
Leipzig.  Greet  the  Duchess,  Stein,  Waldner, 
the  Prince,  and  Knebel."  Knebel,  through  a 
long  life  a  staunch  friend  of  Goethe,  was  tutor 
to  the  Duke's  brother. 

Goethe  has  been  reproached  with  being  too 
conservative,  and  with  having  too  much  defer- 
ence for  rank.  Conservatism  was  a  necessary 
ballast  to  keep  his  eager  faculties  from  rushing 
with  dangerous  swiftness  before  the  impulse  of 
a  bold,  powerful,  originating  mind.  The  con- 
servatism which  in  one  less  richly  endowed 
might'have  been  narrowness,  in  him  became  a 
broad  virtue.  His  respect  for  rank  never  made 
him  do  or  say  anything  unbecoming  an  honest 
and  an  honorable  man.  In  these  respects  he 
had  traits  in  common  with  Washington  ;  and 
where  are  two  men  of  their  generation  who  did 
so  much  to  overthrow  established  conditions 
and  initiate  new  epochs  ?  No  one  saw  men  and 
things  with  a  surer  eye  than  Goethe  ;  and  even 
when  the  subject  was  Saxon  Dukes,  of  Meinin- 
gen,  Gotha,  etc.,  cousins  of  his  beloved  chief, 
he  spoke  what  he  thought  to  one  with  whom 


LO^ES.  167 

he  was  on  the  intimate  terms  he  now  had  got 
to  be  with  Frau  von  Stein.  '  In  the  autumn  of 
1778  he  writes  from  Eisenach  :  "  To-morrow  the 
hunting  will  be  swinish,  nor  do  four  or  five 
Saxon  Dukes  in  a  room  make  the  best  conver- 
sation. I  have  just  come  from  Wilhelmsthal. 
On  the  way  I  talked  much  with  you,  dear  Gold, 
which  I  wished  to  write  in  full  :  but  it  has  all 
vanished.  I  have  had  again  all  kinds  of  disap- 
pointments, as  you  can  well  conceive.  At  the 
same  time  I  have  fine  hopes  for  my  thirtieth 
year  :  In  my  twenty-ninth  I  am  still  such  a 
child." 

Between  Fritz,  one  of  the  children  of  Frau 
von  Stein,  a  year  or  two  old  when  Goethe  came 
to  Weimar,  there  grew  up  a  warm  friendship. 
Goethe  kept  the  child  with  him,  sometimes  for 
days  and  weeks,  and  when  he  came  to  be  seven 
or  eight  years  of  age,  took  him  on  excursions 
and  short  journeys.  Goethe  thus  opens  1779  : 
"  Fritz  woke  me  before  four  and  prattled  in  the 
New  Year.  I  send  a  happy  New  Year,  dearest, 
and  sweet-cake.  Fritz  wishes  to  be  off  again. 
Will  you  have  me  to-day  at  dinner  ?  " 

Titles  are  much  prized  in  Germany :  they 
constitute  a  kind  of  sub-nobility.  The  obtain- 
ing of  one  is  an  event  in  the  life  of  a  German 
burgher  ;  and  even  to  Goethe,  at  that  phasis 


1 68  GOETHE. 

"of  his  career,  it  was  important,  and  from  the 
earliness  with  which  it  was  conferred  on  him, 
very  significant,  that  the  highest  title,  below 
titles  of  nobility,  and  one  which  the  numerous 
nobles  with  the  prefix  von  are  far  from  despis- 
ing, should  thus  almost  in  his  youth  be  be- 
stowed on  him.  He  bore  it  for  the  remaining 
fifty-two  years  of  his  life,  and  thus  announces 
to  his  beloved  friend  the  new  honor :  "  N.  B. 
The  Duke  has  given  the  title  of  Geheimerrath 
[Privy  Councilor]  to  Schnaussen,  Lynkern  and 
me.  It  seems  strange  to  me  that  I,  as  it  were 
in  a  dream,  in  my  thirtieth  year,  come  into  the 
highest  dignity  that  a  burgher  in  Germany  can' 
reach.  On  ne  vajamais  plus  loin  que  quandon 
ne  sait  ou  Fon  va,  said  one  of  the  famous  climb- 
ers of  the  earth." 

On  Sunday  morning,  the  fourteenth  of  May, 
1780,  Goethe  writes :  "  Have  the  goodness  to 
send  me  three  chocolate  cups  and  chocolate  for 
three  persons.  I  have  visitors.  I  beg  to  come 
to  you  as  guest  to  dinner." 

In  the  September  following  he  is  at  Ilmenau. 
He  was  endeavoring  to  revive  activity  in  the 
mines,  which  for  some  time  had  been  neglected. 
Here  is  an  extract  which  shows  what  he  was 
doing  and  thinking  and  feeling  :  "  The  seventh  ; 
evening.  We  mounted  to  the  high  summits 


LOVES.  169 

and  crept  into  the  depths  of  the  earth,  and  how 
rejoiced  we  should  have  been  to  discover  the 
nearest  traces  of  the  great  forming  Hand.  The 
man  is  sure  yet  to  come  who  will  see  clearly. 
We  wish  to  prepare  the  way  for  him.  We  have 
discovered  beautiful  great  things  which  give 
the  soul  a  swing  and  expand  it  into  the  truth. 
Could  we  but  soon  give  occupation  and  bread 
to  the  poor  moles  here  !  On  the  Snowtop  the 
view  is  very  fine.  Good  night :  I  am  tired. 
Thinking  and  chatting  were  still  possible,  but 
not  writing.  Pretty  incidents  —  good  night : 
it  is  idle  to  try  to  narrate. 

"  Friday,  8th  September.  After  a  ten  hours' 
sleep  I  awoke  in  good  spirits.  O,  that  it  were 
my  calling  to  be  always  in  motion  and  in  the 
open  air.  Willingly  would  I  bear  all  the  annoy- 
ances incident  to  this  kind  of  life.  Afterwards 
I  talked  over  and  looked  into  various  matters. 
The  curse  that  should  fall  upon  the  serpent, 
presses  upon  men,  who  creep  on  their  bellies 
and  eat  dirt.  Then,  for  a  washing  and  purifi- 
cation, I  read  some  Greek." 

From  a  letter  dated  Zillbach,  a  few  days 
later,  here  is  another  characteristic  passage  : 
"We  arrived  late,  because  princes  and  prin- 
cesses can  never  get  away  from  a  place  at  the 
right  hour,  as  Stein  [her  husband]  remarked  as 


I/O  GOETHE. 

the  time  pressed  heavy  upon  him,  while  his 
Serene  Highness  was  trying  guns  and  pistols. 
As  for  me,  I  took  out  my  Euripides  and  sea- 
soned this  insipid  quarter  of  an  hour. 

"  Then  the  greatest  gift  for  which  I  have  to 
thank  the  Gods  is,  that  through  the  rapidity 
and  variety  of  thoughts,  I  can  split  a  clear  day 
like  this  into  a  million  parts,  and  thus  make  a 
small  eternity. 

"  Like  a  cheerful  Mirza  I  travel  to  the  famous 
Fair  of  Cabul :  nothing  is  too  small  or  too  large 
for  my  eyes  or  my  wishes,  and  when  I  have 
bargained  and  paid  my  money,  I  fall  in  love 
with  the  Princess  of  Cashmere,  and  now  enter 
upon  the  great  journeys  through  deserts  and 
forests  and  mountain-gorges,  and  thence  to  the 
moon.  Dear  Gold,  when  at  last  I  wake  out  of 
my  dream,  I  always  find  that  I  love  thee  still, 
and  long  to  be  with  thee." 

Towards  the  end  of  February,  1781,  he  thus 
announces  the  death  of  Lessing  :  "  Scarcely 
could  anything  sadder  have  happened  to  me 
than  the  death  of  Lessing.  Not  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  before  the  news  arrived  I  was  planning 
to  pay  him  a  visit.  We"  lose  much,  much  in 
him,  more  than  we  believe." 

January,  1783,  opened  for  Goethe  with  an 
invitation  from  the  Duchess  of  Gotha  in  an 


LOVES.  I/I 

autographic  note,  of  which  here   is  a  transla- 
tion :  — 

"  GOTHA,  zd  January. 

"  Although  you  have  already  given  a  declin- 
ing answer,  I  nevertheless  venture  once  more  to 
invite  you  to  our  ball  on  Thursday.  Nobody 
here  knows  a  word  of  this  invitation  but  Frau 
von  Seckendorf.  If  you  wish  to  be  very  oblig- 
ing, come  Thursday  noon,  because  we  dine 
with  Prince  August.  Till  then,  farewell,  and 
come,  and  that  early.  CHARLOTTE." 

The  Duchess  Charlotte  would  have  been  a 
benefactress  to  Prince  August  and  his  dinner- 
party had  she  brought  Goethe  with  her  ;  and 
in  justice  to  that  ducal  and  titled  company  be 
it  said,  the  great  plebeian's  talk  would  have 
been  listened  to  with  delight  and  deference. 
It  is  related  that  once  at  the  palace  in  Weimar 
nearly  the  whole  company  had  gathered  round 
the  poet  in  another  room,  leaving  the  Duke 
almost  alone.  "Come,"  said  he,  "we  must  do 
like  the  rest  ; "  and  he  joined  the  circle  of 
listeners  around  Goethe. 

The  note  of  the  Duchess  of  Gotha  Goethe 
sends  to  Frau  von  Stein,  writing  on  it  a  com- 
ment :  "  I  have  just  received  this  letter,  dear 
Lotte,  by  an  estafette.  What  a  restlessness  in 


1/2  GOETHE. 

princely  limbs  :  they  can  neither  sit  still  them- 
selves nor  let  others  sit  still.  If  there  were  a 
French  turnpike  ;  but  a  road  like  the  passage 
of  the  Red  Sea  by  the  Israelites,  according  to 
the  description  of  Lessing's  critic.  There  is  a 
thaw-wind  blowing,  and  what  is  worse  than  all, 
I  don't  feel  like  it.  Do  say  that  I  had  better 
not  go,  in  order  to  settle  me.  I  will  write  her 
a  kind  letter  ;  that,  I  hope,  will  satisfy  her.  Be- 
fore spring  no  one  gets  me  out  of  my  nest  for 
pastime. 

"  Send  me  my  books.     Keep  the  engravings. 

"The  wind  has  spoilt  a  skating  party.  I 
hoped  also  to  welcome  thee  before  or  after  din- 
ner on  the  smooth  element.  Adieu,  beloved. 
Write  me  a  word." 

With  no  other  correspondent  was  Goethe  so 
confidential  as  with  Frau  von  Stein.  Warmth 
of  affection  will  melt  into  liquid  flow  feelings, 
opinions,  convictions,  which  otherwise  run  into 
no  mould  of  words.  Through  her  his  inmost 
was  stirred,  and  took  delight  in  coming  to  the 
surface  for  her  eye.  The  year  1782  is  one  of 
the  richest  in  letters  and  intimate  confidences. 
I  translate  a  few  short  passages  or  sentences, 
giving  the  dates. 

"  I  have  my  head  full  of  ideas  and  cares.  No 
cares  on  my  own  account,  for  to  me  Fortune 


LOVES.  173 

blows  right  upon  my  back  ;  but  so  much  the 
more  for  others,  for  many.  For  one's  self  one 
can,  after  all,  find  the  right  road ;  for  others 
and  with  others  it  seems  to  be  almost  impossi- 
ble." January  20. 

"  Dearest,  don't  wonder  that  the  rich  are  so 
sick  and  miserable  :  I  wonder  that  they  even 
keep  alive."  Gotha,  March  3 . 

"  Wilt  thou,  dear  Lotte,  have  me  some  dinner 
prepared  to-day :  my  people  are  so  busy,  and  I 
wish  to  stay  at  home.  I  will  send  for  it  to- 
wards one."  May  25. 

"  How  much  better  were  it  for  me  if,  clear  of 
the  strife  of  politics,  I  could,  dearest,  devote 
myself  near  thee  to  Science  and  Art,  for  which 
I  was  born."  June  4. 

"  I  was  made  for  private  life,  and  cannot  un- 
derstand why  fate  has  patched  me  into  the  ad- 
ministration of  a  state  and  a  princely  family." 
September  17. 

"  The  snow  is  welcome  ;  it  brings  to  my 
memory  past  winters,  and  many  a  scene  of  thy 
friendliness.  Farewell,  thou  sweet  dream  of 
my  life,  thou  cordial  of  my  pains.  To-morrow 
I  have  a  tea-party."  November  21. 

"  If  I  have  not  ever  new  ideas  to  work  up  I 
become  as  though  I  were  ill."  December  28. 

"  I  have  not  gone  out  to-day,  but  have  been 


1/4  GOETHE. 

looking  into  old  papers  and  books,  and  in  a 
wilderness  of  formality  have  found  much  that 
is  human-."  February  i,  1783. 

"  I  am  hard  at  work,  and  concern  myself 
about  the  things  of  the  earth  for  the  sake  of 
the  earthly.  My  inner  life  is  with  thee,  and  my 
kingdom  not  of  this  world.  Adieu,  best  one. 
Send  me  a  note  if  possible.  Adieu. 

"  Fritz  has  just  come  back  in  high  spirits 
from  his  coal-works,  and  will  write  some  more 
on  his  letter.  Adieu.  I  love  thee  in  him,  and 
him  in  thee."  April  16. 

"The  court  takes  away  all  joy,  and  never 
gives  joy."  April  20. 

"  How  much  T  owe  and  shall'  owe  to  thee, 
dear  benefactress,  and  wherewith  can  I  thank 
thee  ?  I  am  well ;  only  it  is  a  hard  task  when 
one  undertakes  to  bring  the  discord  of  the 
world  into  concord.  The  whole  year  through 
I  hardly  come  upon  a  single  satisfactory  busi- 
ness, and  am  ever  pulled  hither  and  thither,  by 
people's  troubles  and  ineptitudes."  April  24. 

"  Here  I  found  what  was  to  be  expected. 
The  people  of  the  court  complain  of  tedious- 
ness,  of  walking,  of  driving,  of  standing,  of 
dust,  heat,  hills,  etc.  They  praise  the  scenery 
highly,  and  have  no  enjoyment  of  it. 

"  To  my  great  delight  the  elephant's  skull 


LOVES.  175 

has  arrived  from  Cassel,  and  what  I  seek  for  is 
beyond  my  expectation  visible  in  it.  I  keep  it 
hidden  in  the  little  inner  room,  in  order  that 
people  may  not  think  me  crazy.  My  hostess 
believes  there  is  porcelain  in  the  huge  box.  .  .  . 

"  I  am  to  receive  one  of  the  earliest  copies 
of  Voltaire  s  Memoirs,  and  will  send  it  to  you 
at  once.  You  will  find,  it  is  as/ if  a  God  (say 
Momus)  or  a  low  God  were  to  write  about  a 
king  and  what  is  elevated  in  the  world.  This 
is  generally  the  character  of  all  Voltaire's  witty 
writings,  and  is  stamped  upon  these  pages.  Not 
a  drop  of  human  blood,  not  a  spark  of  sym- 
pathy or  propriety.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
is  a  lightness,  a  fineness  of  mind,  a  firmness, 
that  are  enchanting.  I  say  fineness  of  mind, 
not  elevation.  He  may  be  likened  to  a  balloon 
which,  through  a  peculiar  floating  power,  swings 
itself  above  everything  and  sees  beneath  it 
plains  where  we  see  mountains."  Eisenach, 
June  7,  1784. 

"  Fritz  sends  you  this  charade  :  — 

"  I  keep  me  ever  beautiful  and  cannot  see, 
And  my  companions  are  dejectedness  and  smart : 
I  am  both  old  and  young,  an  aged  child  I  be  : 
Now,  reader,  guess  me  quick,  I  bide  within  the  heart." 

February  2,  1785. 

"  Greet  Stein.     Since  your  departure  I  have 


1/6  GOETHE. 

not  seen  him :  he  was  never  at  home  when  I 
sought  him."  September  1 1,  '85. 

"  I  am  diligent,  am  busy  with  something  that 
interests  me,  and  shall  give  the  day  to  it.  For 
the  evening  I  look  forward  to  the  joy  of  going 
through  Hamlet  at  thy  side,  and  of  explaining 
to  thee  what  thou  already  understandest  better 
than  I."  January  8,  1786. 

It  was  on  the  third  of  September  of  this 
year  that  Goethe  set  out  for  Italy.  Six  weeks 
later  he  writes  to  Frau  von  Stein  :  — 

"TERNI,  October  27,  1786.     Evening. 

"  Sitting  again  in  a  cave,  which  a  year  ago 
suffered  from  an  earthquake,  I  turn  my  prayer 
to  thee,  my  dear  guardian  Angel !  How  spoilt 
I  am,  I  feel  now  for  the  first  time :  to  live  ten 
years  with  thee,  beloved  by  thee,  and  now  in  a 
strange  world.  I  said  to  myself  it  would  be 
so,  and  nothing  but  the  highest  necessity  had 
power  to  force  me  to  take  the  resolution. 

"  Let  us  have  no  other  thought  than  to  pass 
our  lives  together." 

This  may  be  interpreted  to  hint  that  there 
was  some  truth  in  the  rumor  which  Schiller 
reported  to  Koerner.  And  there  are  similar, 
one  might  say  significant,  expressions  of  devo- 
tion for  months  before  he  started  for  Italy. 


LOVES.  177 

Her  letters  to  him  would  throw  light  upon  this 
interesting  point ;  but  it  may  have  been  on  that 
very  account  chiefly  that  she  withdrew  from 
Goethe  all  her  letters  and  destroyed  them. 
How  pertinent  would  be,  for  example,  her 
answer  to  this  gush  from  Goethe  in  a  letter  of 
more  than  a  year  earlier,  the  eighth  of  Septem- 
ber, 1785  :  "  Love  me,  thou  best  of  all  the  femi- 
nine beings  that  I  have  ever  become  acquainted 
with  ;  keep  me  in  thy  love,  and  believe  that  I 
am  thine,  and  will  and  must  remain  thine." 

About  a  year  after  his  arrival  in  Italy,  while 
spending  part  of  the  summer  at  Castle  Gan- 
dolfo,  near  Rome,  Goethe  was  fascinated  by  a 
young  lady  from  Milan.  Frau  von  Stein  was 
far  away,  and  in  the  easy,  free  life  of  a  pub- 
lic resort  he  was  thrown  much  with  the  fair 
Milanese,  and,  as  .the  common,  expressive 
phrase  is,  he  fell  desperately  in  love.  Did  this 
imply  effacing  of  the  image  of  his  long-cherished 
correspondent  in  Weimar  ?  He  could  carry 
two,  three  poems,  Faust,  Tasso,  Iphigenia,  in 
his  brain  at  the  same  time,  working  on  this  or 
that  one  according  as  moods  were  propitious. 
Could  he  carry  two  fair  creatures  in  his  heart 
without  their  jostling  one  another  ?  Perhaps 
the  gentlemen  of  Utah  could  help  us  to  an- 
swer this  psychological  question.  It  turned  out 


1/8  GOETHE. 

that  the  lovely  Milanese  was  already  betrothed. 
From  some  cause,  not,  so  far  as  we  know,  con- 
nected with  Goethe,  the  match  was  broken  off; 
but  nothing  matrimonial  came  of  Goethe's  at- 
tachment. 

On  his  return  from  Italy  personal  relations 
with  Frau  von  Stein  were  renewed  ;  but  they 
were  only  friendly.  He  wrote  notes,  not  with- 
out some  of  the  old  words  of  endearment ;  but 
they  were  less  frequent,  and  lacked  the  former 
glow.  In  one  of  them  he  thanks  her  for  a 
breakfast  she  had  sent  him ;  but  it  is  evident 
that  he  had  not  eaten  it  with  the  gusto  of  a 
lover.  To  have  such  a  lover  cool,  after  ten 
years  of  tender  devotion,  was  a  trial,  and  Frau 
von  Stein  had  been  a  woman  of  extraordinary 
equanimity  not  to  be  deeply  pained  by  the 
alienation,  and  of  extraordinary  magnanimity 
not  to  show  how  deeply  she  was  wounded  when 
his  love  for  Christiane  Vulpius  came  to  light. 
This  caused  a  rupture.  Some  years  later 
friendly  relations  were  resumed,  and  they  cor- 
responded at  intervals  until  her  death.  On  her 
death-bed,  January,  1827,  in  her  eighty-fifth 
year,  she  requested  that  the  funeral  procession 
should  make  a  detour  from  its  natural  course, 
so  as  not  to  pass  under  Goethe's  windows,  fear- 
ing that  the  sight  of  it  would  give  him  pain. 


LOVES.  179 

Goethe's  first  note  to  her  was  written  in  the 
opening  days  of  1 776  ;  his  last,  on  the  twenty- 
ninth  of  August,  1826.  Here  it  is:  "The 
accompanying  poem,  my  dearest,  ought  prop- 
erly to  end  as  follows  :  '  but  to  see  affection 
and  love  maintain  themselves  through  so  many, 
many  years  between  near  neighbors,  is  the  high- 
est that  can  be  given  to  man.'  " 

One  is  rejoiced  to  see  that  the  great  and  still 
fresh  old  man  can  at  seventy-eight  cast  in  this 
particular  instance  so  gratifying  a  glance  over 
the  past  fifty  years,  and  pleasantly  summon 
Frau  von  Stein  to  share  the  gratification  ;  but 
the  above  passage  cannot  be  cited  as  one  of 
those  wise,  happy  generalizations  that  are  so 
often  met  with  in  his  pages. 

Of  a  poetic  feeling-full  nature,  one  of  the 
urgent  needs  is  sympathy,  and  fortunate  was 
Goethe  that,  in  the  prodigal  vigor  of  his  early 
manhood,  he  had  a  Frau  von  Stein  to  at  once 
cordially  and  thoughtfully  listen  to  his  intimate 
confidences.  A  clear-minded,  cultivated  wom- 
an, in  high  position,  who  was  proud  of  his 
love  for  her,  and  who,  while  keeping  him  at  a 
certain  personal  distance,  eagerly  followed  his 
aspirations,  and  was  able  to  value  his  gifted 
nature,  and  into  whose  ready  ear  he  could  pour 
his  latest  thoughts  on  whatever,  from  without 


180  GOETHE. 

or  from  within,  interested  or  troubled  him  :  it 
was  a  rarely-enjoyed  prerogative  of  genius,  and 
helped  to  keep  his  mind  in  abounding  activity, 
and  at  the  same  time  at  ease.  An  important 
section  it  was  of  his  adult  education.  She  at 
once  stimulated  and  calmed  him  ;  she  kept  him 
at 'a  healthy  glow.  With  some  tempering  of 
the  Italian's  phrase,  Goethe  might  almost  say 
of  his  Lotte  what  Petrarca  said  of  his  Laura  : 
"  The  little  that  I  am,  I  am  through  that  lady, 
and  if  I  have  any  fame  or  glory,  I  should  never 
have  reached  it,  had  she  not  cultivated  with 
such  noble  feelings  the  very  small  seed  of  virtue 
which  nature  had  deposited  in  me." 

Capacity  of  growth,  of  endless  growth,  is  a 
distinctive  quality  of  the  human  being.  To 
man's  bodily  and  to  his  animal  increase  there 
is  a  quick  bound,  as  there  is  to  that  of  all  other 
bodies  and  animals  of  the  earth.  But  spirit- 
ually and,  through  his  spirit,  intellectually,  there 
is  no  cognizable  bound  to  his  expansion  and 
improvement.  In  this  expansibility  there  is 
among  men,  as  among  tribes  and  races  of  men, 
a  tall  scale  of  degrees.  Goethe  was  one  of  those 
who  ever  keep  growing  ;  his  being  unfolded 
itself  continuously  ;  he  had  an  -insatiable  curi- 
osity in  far  as  well  as  near  directions  ;  his  soul 
sought  to  satisfy  itself  by  seeking  satisfactions 


LOVES.  l8l 

out  of  itself.  Such  growth  is  through  the 
higher  sensibilities.  In  a  man's  mental  nature 
these  are  the  hungry  elements  that  feed  them- 
selves daily,  and  through  this  feeding  (in  which 
they  use  the  intellect  as  their  spoon)  add  to  his 
mental  breadth  and  stature.  What  gives  appe- 
tite and  momentum  to  these  elements  is  of 
course  the  central  vitality,  the  inward  eagerness 
and  thirsfiness.  But  this  internal  movement 
may  be  much  obstructed  or  much  furthered  by 
outward  surroundings.  Considering  Goethe's 
impressible  and  passional  nature,  it  may  be 
looked  upon  as  a  happiness  for  him  and  his 
unfolding  that  during  those  ten  initiatory  years 
he  was  linked  by  such  warm  devotion  to  a  Frau 
von  Stein. 

Many,  even  true,  estimable,  intelligent  men, 
do  not  grow  continuously,  at  least  not  on  earth. 
After  middle  life  they  are  quiescent,  they  ex- 
perience no  fresh  thirsts  ;  they  get  merely  more 
shrewdness,  and  more  skill  in  manipulation  on 
the  old  tracks  ;  the  man  as  man  hardly  ad- 
vances. Long  years  ago,  while  studying  the 
discoveries  of  Gall,  I  met  with  the  remark  that 
few  professional  men  can  take  up  with  new 
ideas  when  they  have  reached  forty.  After 
that  age  most  men  harden  in  their  early  opin- 
ions and  beliefs.  Some,  and  they  not  always 


1 82  GOETHE. 

without  intellectual  vivacity,  grow,  as  the  boys 
say,  like  a  cow's  tail  downwards. 

A  few  weeks  after  his  return  from  Italy, 
while  walking  in  the  Park  at  Weimar  one  sum- 
mer day,  Goethe  "  was  accosted  by  a  fresh, 
young,  bright-looking  girl,  who,  with  many  rev- 
erences handed  him  a  petition."  The  petition 
entreated  the  good  offices  of  the  great  poet  in 
behalf  of  a  young  author  then  earning  a  scanty 
livelihood  in  Jena  by  translating  French  and 
Italian  stories.  The  young  author  was  Vul- 
pius,  and  the  blooming  girl  who  presented  the 
petition  was  his  sister  Christiane,  who  from 
that  moment  added  another,  and  a  most  impor- 
tant one,  to  the  loves  of  Goethe. 

"  Her  father,"  says  Mr.  Lewis,  "  was  one  of 
those  wretched  beings  whose  drunkenness 
slowly  but  surely  brings  a  whole  family  to 
want.  He  would  sometimes  sell  the  coat  off 
his  back  for  drink.  When  his  children  grew 
up  they  contrived  to  get  away  from  him,  and 
to  support  themselves  :  the  son  by  literature, 
the  daughters  by  making  artificial  flowers,  wool- 
len work,  etc.  It  is  usually  said  that  Chris- 
tiane was  utterly  uneducated,  and  the  epigram- 
matic pen  glibly  records  that  "  Goethe  married 
his  servant."  She  never  was  his  servant.  Nor 
was  she  uneducated.  Her  social  position  in- 


LOVES.  183 

deed  was  very  humble,  as  the  foregoing  indica- 
tions suggest  :  but  that  she  was  not  unedu- 
cated is  plainly  seen  in  the  facts,  of  which 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  namely,  that  for  her 
were  written  the  Roman  Elegies  and  the  Meta- 
morphoses of  Plants  ;  and  that  in  her  company 
Goethe  pursued  his  optical  and  botanical  re- 
searches. Plow  much  she  understood  of  these 
researches  we  cannot  know :  but  it  is  certain 
that,  unless  she  had  shown  a  lively  comprehen- 
sion, he  would  never  have  persisted  in  talking 
of  them  to  her.  Their  time,  he  says,  was  not 
spent  only  in  caresses,  but  also  in  rational  talk. 
This  is  decisive.  Throughout  his  varied  cor- 
respondence we  always  see  him  presenting 
different  subjects  to  different  minds,  treating 
of  topics  in  which  his  correspondents  are  in- 
terested, not  dragging  forward  topics  which 
merely  interest  him ;  and  among  the  wide 
range  of  subjects  he  had  mastered,  there  were 
many  upon  which  he  might  have  conversed 
with  Christiane,  in  preference  to  science,  had 
she  shown  any  want  of  comprehension  of  sci- 
entific phenomena.  .  .  .  While,  however,  rec- 
tifying a  general  error,  let  me  not  fall  into  the 
opposite  extreme.  Christiane  had  her  charm  ; 
but  she  was  not  a  highly  gifted  woman.  She 
was  not  a  Frau  von  Stein,  capable  of  being 


1 84  GOETHE. 

the  companion  and  the  sharer  of  his  highest 
aspirations.  Quick  mother-wit,  a  lively  spirit, 
a  loving  heart,  and  great  aptitude  for  domestic 
duties,  she  undoubtedly  possessed :  she  was 
gay,  enjoying,  fond  of  pleasure  even  to  excess, 
and,  —  as  may  be  read  in  the  poems  she  in- 
spired, —  was  less  the  mistress  of  his  mind 
than  his  affections.  Her  golden-brown  locks, 
laughing  eyes,  ruddy  cheeks,  kiss-provoking 
lips,  small  and  gracefully  rounded  figure,  give 
her  the  "  appearance  of  a  young  Dionysos  ;  "  so 
says  Madame  Schopenhauer,  not  a  prejudiced 
witness.  Her  naivett,  gayety  and  enjoying  tem- 
perament, completely  fascinated  Goethe,  who 
recognized  in  her  one  of  those  free,  healthy 
specimens  of  nature  which  education  had  not 
distorted  with  artifice.  She  was  like  a  child  of 
the  sensuous  Italy  he  had  just  quitted  with  so 
much  regret ;  and  there  are  few  poems  in  any 
language  which  approach  the  passionate  grati- 
tude of  those  in  which  he  recalls  the  happiness 
she  gave  him. 

"  Why  did  he  not  marry  her  at  once  ?  His 
dread  of  marriage  has  already  been  shown ; 
and  to  this  abstract  dread  there  must  be  added 
the  great  disparity  of  station :  a  disparity  so 
great  that  not  only  did  it  make  the  liaison  scan- 
dalous, it  made  Christiane  herself  reject  the 


LOVES.  185 

offer  of  marriage.  Stahr  reports  that  persons 
now  living  have  heard  her  declare  that  it  was 
her  own  fault  her  marriage  was  so  long  de- 
layed ;  and  certain  it  is  that  when  —  Christ- 
mas, 1789 —  she  bore  him  a  child  (August  von 
Goethe,  to  whom  the  Duke  stood  godfather), 
he  took  her  with  her  mother  and  sister  to  live 
in  his  house,  and  always  regarded  the  connec- 
tion as  a  marriage." 

In  an  exceptional  proceeding  of  this  kind  a 
decisive  question  to  be  answered  is,  in  how  far, 
surrender  having  been  at  first  made  to  passion, 
duty  afterwards  atones :  in  how  far  did  the 
higher  sentiments  mingle  with  and  sanctify  im- 
pulses ?  Suppose  that  Goethe  had  sent  Chris- 
tiane  and  her  infant  to  a  remote  town  with  a 
small  stipend,  he  would  have  done  what  in 
such  cases  is  mostly  done  by  men  of  his 
worldly  elevation,  and  what  the  world  tacitly 
sanctions.  In  taking  Christiane  to  his  house 
to  cherish  her  there  as  though '  she  were  his 
legal  wife,  he  obeyed  the  dictates  of  a  truer 
manliness,  a  nobler  self-respect,  a  higher  cluti- 
fulness,  than  if,  with  a  worldling's  cold  and  vir- 
tually immoral  regard  for  the  convenances,  he 
had  hidden  her  away  out  of  sight,  and  thus 
seemingly  broken  (for  essentially  it  never  can 
be  broken)  the  sacred  bonds  which  bind  to- 


1 86  GOETHE. 

gather  the  parents  of  a  child.  Had  he  married 
her  at  once,  —  considering  where  he  was  and 
what  he  was,  —  he  would  have  done  an  act  of 
heroism.  He  did  the  next  best  thing  to  that. 
What  he  did  he  has  told  in  one  of  his  short, 
exquisite  lyrics,  which  I  attempt  to  regive  in 
the  charming  simplicity  of  its  verse  and  phrase. 

FOUND. 

I  roamed  at  random 
Athrough  a  wood, 
To  seek  for  nothing  —  • 
That  was  my  mood. 

I  did  in  shadow 

A  flow'ret  spy  ; 

As  stars  'twas  lustrous, 

Or  a  wee  eye. 

I  wished  to  break  it ; 
Then  soft  it  said  : 
Shall  I  be  broken 
Quickly  to  fade  ? 

With  all  its  rootlets 
Dug  from  the  loam 
To  my  own  garden 
I  bore  it  home. 

In  a  still  corner 
I  gave  it  room ; 
And  there  it  thriveth 
Ever  in  bloom. 

Goethe  of  course,  like  other  men,  did  things 
and  said  words  he  had   better  not  have  done 


LOVES.  IS/ 

and  said  ;  but  few  men  are  so  apt  to  repent  of 
such  as  he  was,  striving  ever  to  amend.  And, 
spite  of  the  facts  involved  in  this  long  chapter, 
not  often  is  a  man  of  so  much,  passion  so  well 
controlled. 

To  have  and  to  hold  before  ourselves  a  moral 
standard,  is  one  of  our  precious  and  most  sig- 
nificant human  privileges  ;  but  a  standard,  to 
be  a  standard,  must  be  swung  high  and  free, 
not  nailed  to  creed  or  custom,  and  especially 
not  held  in  the  palsied  hand  of  Phariseeism. 
We  are  all  given  to  quick  condemnation  of  the 
errings  of  our  neighbors  ;  and  this  is  perhaps 
a  form  of  self-fortification,  and  the  self-compla- 
cency accompanying  our  censure  may  be  a 
form  of  self-protection  ;  but  let  us  beware  that 
the  feeling  shoot  not  into  presumption  or  self- 
righteousness,  for  then  we  wound  ourselves. 
When  the  fellow-man  whom  we  bring  before  us 
happens  to  be  one  whose  fellowship  is  to  us  an 
honor  and  an  exaltation,  let  us  pause  and  sum- 
mon to  our  aid  all  the  best  there  is  in  us ;  and 
then,  if  there  be  any  of  the  best  in  us,  we  shall 
in  the  place  of  judgment  put  sympathetic  re- 
gret that  our  great  brother  has  been  so  self- 
inflicted  with  trouble.  In  that  case  we  shall 
be  the  better  for  his  trials  ;  but  if  we  cry  out 
for  judgment,  we  shall  be  the  worse. 


1 88  GOETHE. 

For  his  manly  treatment  of  Christiane  in 
taking  her  to  his  house  Goethe  suffered  socially 
in  Weimar.  Had  he  at  once  married  one  so 
much  below  him  in  station,  the  ostracism  would 
only  have  been  moderated.  He  was  not  con- 
demned because  he  had  violated  right  or  duty, 
but  because  he  had  defied  custom  and  conven- 
tionalities. In  spite  of  his  high  solid  position, 
he  could  hardly  have  held  out  but  for  his  lively, 
inexhaustible,  internal  resources,  literary  and 
scientific  and  personal. 

Goethe's  love  for  Christiane  was  not  a  mo- 
mentary passion,  a  transient  fancy.  Ten  years 
after  their  first  meeting,  in  a  letter  to  her, 
written  on  a  journey,  he  regrets  not  having 
taken  something  of  hers  with  him,  were  it  only 
her  .slipper,  that  he  might  feel  less  lonely.  And 
when  she  died,  in  1816,  he  was  overcome  with 
grief ;  kneeling  at  her  bedside  he  exclaimed  : 
"  Thou  wilt  not  forsake  me  !  No,  no ;  thou 
must  not  forsake  me !  "  He  concludes  a  letter 
to  Zelter  on  the  eighth  of  June,  1816,  with  these 
words  :  "  When  I  tell  thee,  thou  stout,  sorely 
tried  son  of  earth,  that  within  these  few  days 
my  dear  little  wife  has  left  me,  thou  wilt  know 
what  that  means." 

During  the  partial  sack  of  Weimar,  after  the 
battle  of  Jena,  in  1 806,  Christiane  showed  her 


LOPES.  189 

usual  devotion  to  Goethe,  helping  to  protect  him 
against  some  French  soldiers  who  got  into  his 
house.  On  this  dangerous  occasion  she  gave 
proof  of  remarkable  courage  and  management. 
Whether  this  brought  to  a  head  a  resolution 
before  formed,  in  order  to  legitimate  his  son,  or 
that  troublous  times  make  duties  press  more 
urgently  upon  the  heart,  whatever  the  moving 
cause,  five  days  after  the  battle  of  Jena  Goethe 
married  Christiane,  their  son  being  then  seven- 
teen. 

Yet,  during  the  latter  half  of  their  union  of 
twenty-eight  years,  Christiane  was  one  of 
Goethe's  sorest  trials.  From  her  father  she 
inherited  the  tendency  and  habit  which  lost 
him.  Goethe  bore  with  her  with  exemplary 
forbearance,  for  he  was  a  patient  man  and  a 
dutiful,  and  of  great  tenaciousness  of  attach- 
ment. This  too  was  a  part,  and  not  the  least 
serviceable  part,  of  his  discipline  on  earth. 
Throughout  his  prolonged  life  Goethe  was  doing 
for  himself,  —  and,  through  the  transfusion  of 
himself  into  his  writings,  for  others,  —  what, 
by  an  able  critic  of  Jowett's  Plato  in  the  Edin- 
burg  Review,  is  said  to  be  the  purpose  of  Plato's 
Dialogues  :  he  was  educating  the  soul.  A  man 
who  consciously  educates  his  soul,  unfolds  and 
uplifts  his  moral  and  spiritual  being,  for  this 


GOETHE. 

being  is  the  very  nucleus  of  a  soul ;  and  thus 
he  satisfies  —  in  so  far  as  his  individuality  can 
satisfy  —  the  demands  of  justice,  of  piety,  of 
love. 

Goethe  has  been  called  a  pagan,  and  there  is 
perhaps  a  little  more  truth  in  the  designation 
than  that  it  merely  implies  his  manysidedness. 
In  his  mental  make  there  was  great  wealth  of 
sensuosity.  To  illustrate  Goethe  by  contrast, 
in  Wordsworth  there  was  deficiency  of  sensu- 
osity :  Wordsworth  was  not  at  all  pagan,  not- 
withstanding the  magnificent  exclamation  at 
the  close  of  one  of  his  greatest  sonnets  :  — 

"  Great  God  !     I'd  rather  be 
A  pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn  ; 

So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn  ; 

Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea ; 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 

And  Wordsworth,  unlike  Goethe,  was  the 
opposite  of  manysided  ;  nor  do  we  wish  that 
he  had  been  manysided.  Nor  would  we  have 
Goethe  less  of  a  pagan.  There  is  something 
of  sacrilege  in  touching,  even  with  so  impotent 
a  modifier  as  a  wish,  one  of  these  chosen  or- 
ganisms, which  the  divine  breath  has  moulded 
to  finest  issues. 

Of  Goethe's  paganism  the  Roman   Elegies 


LOVES.  191 

are  a  resplendent  exemplification.  Inspired  by 
Christiane,  the  easy,  graceful  vesture  for  them 
was  furnished  by  his  recent  studies  and  delight 
in  Ancient  Art,  and  by  the  images  and  sensa- 
tions supplied  by  his  luxuriant  residence  in  the 
epicurean  climate,  amid  the  glowing  scenery, 
of  southern  Itlay.  Observe  in  some  of  the 
best  of  the  Elegies  how  mere  animal  feelings 
are  spoken  out,  naively  and  innocently,  because 
shame  as  yet  is  not,  shame  being  born  when 
the  spiritual  has  grown  strong  enough  to  rule, 
or,  if  not  to  rule,  to  warn,  the  animal.  The 
essence  of  classical  paganism  is,  that  the  soul 
is  not  wakened  to  full  consciousness  and  sense 
of  regality.  (Is  it  yet  wide  awake  ?)  That 
Goethe  could  so  vividly  reproduce  the  classic 
pagan  feeling,  shows  the  Greek  side  of  his 
manysidedness,  and  that  Christiane  inspired 
just  a  pagan  love.  The  Roman  Elegies  are 
more  antique  than  Goethe's  Iphigcnia.  Chris- 
tiane turning  out  fat  and  gross,  what  a  com- 
ment on  and  moral  to  the  Roman  Elegies ! 
And  what  a  retribution  for  a  pagan  love.  Had 
Goethe  not  been  much  more  than  a  pagan, 
when  the  gross  and  not  the  refined  in  Chris- 
tiane grew  with  years,  he  would  not  have  bound 
himself  to  her  by  the  legal  bond  of  marriage, 
but  would  have  treated  her  as  many  modern 


IQ2  GOETHE. 

pagans  would  have  treated  her.  But  in  Goethe, 
besides  and  above  the  classical  pagan,  was  the 
Christian  man  and  the  honorable  gentleman. 

On  the  fifteenth  of  January,  1813,  Goethe 
thus  concludes  a  letter  to  Zelter  :  "  Mr.  Pfund 
I  had  great  pleasure  in  seeing,  although  only 
for  a  short  time.  His  chief  recommendation 
to  me  was  his  attachment  to  thee.  His  bride 
I  began  to  love  when  she  was  a  child  of  eight 
years,  and  in  her  sixteenth  year  I  loved  her 
more  than  was  reasonable.  Thou  wilt,  per- 
haps, on  this  account  be  more  friendly  towards 
her  when  she  comes  to  you. 

"  And  now  the  heartiest  farewell." 
This  was  Minna  Herzlieb,  the  adopted 
daughter  of  Fromman,  a  bookseller  of  Jena, 
and  a  valued  friend  of  Goethe,  who  spent  in 
Fromman's  family  circle  many  happy  hours. 
It  was  about  seven  years  before  the  date  of  the 
above  letter  that  Minna  was  sixteen.  (Sweet 
sixteen  again).  The  fascination  was  mutual. 
We  smile  now  while  reading  of  the  affair :  but 
at  the  time  it  was  the  cause  of  pain  and  alarm 
to  friends  on  both  sides.  The  two  lovers  had 
to  be  parted  ;  and  this  was  effected  by  sending 
Minna  away  to  school!  To  this,  Goethe's  pe- 
nultimate love,  we  owe  The  Elective  Affinities. 
Minna  is  the  original  of  Ottilie. 


LOVES.  193 

As  Goethe  was  a  born  poet,  so  was  he  a  born 
lover.  His  nature  demanded  that  he  should 
ever  carry  about  with  him  in  his  brain  some 
image  of  womanhood  to  cheer  him  and  agitate 
him.  One  might  think  that,  when  he  had  gotten 
to  be  seventy-four,  he  had  reached  the  period 
wished  for  by  Socrates,  when  he  would  be  no 
longer  subject  to  such  solicitations.  But  Goethe 
seems  to  have  been  of  the  marrow  of  the  Patri- 
archs, the  type  of  whom  is  still  extant,  Sir 
Samuel  Baker  telling  of  a  Sheik  in  Abyssinia 
who  leaped  alertly  down  from  his  white  camel  to 
greet  him,  and  who,  now  in  his  eightieth  year, 
had  just  taken  another  wife,  aged  fourteen.  I 
saw  Goethe  in  1825,  when  he  was  seventy-six. 
Neither  in  his  countenance  nor  carriage  did  he 
then  bear  any  detracting  signs  of  age.  He 
was  one  of  those  men  in  talking  with  whom 
you  have  no  thought  of  their  years. 

In  the  summer  of  1823  Goethe  met  at  Ma- 
rienbad  Fraulein  von  Lewetzow.  Mr.  Lewis 
thus  records  his  last  love :  "  A  passion  grew 
up  between  them,  which,  returned  on  her  side 
with  almost  equal  vehemence,  brought  back  to 
him  once  more  the  exaltation  of  the  Werther 
period.  It  was  thought  he  would  marry  her,  — 
and  indeed  he  wished  to  do  so  ;  but  the  repre- 
sentations of  his  friends,  and  perhaps  the  fear 
13 


194  GOETHE. 

of  ridicule,  withheld  him.  He  tore  himself 
away  ;  and  the  Marienbad  Elegy,  which  he 
wrote  in  the  carriage  as  it  whirled  him  away, 
remains  as  a  token  of  the  passion  and  his  suf- 
fering." 

Thus,  for  sixty  years  had  Goethe's  mind  been 
warmed  and  inspired  by  his  loves.  His  feeling 
for  woman  was  a  subterranean  heat  which  fer- 
tilized his  being,  breaking  out  at  times  into 
flames  which  will  ever  be  a  beauty  and  an  illu- 
mination to  mankind,  and  which  were  some- 
times a  terror  to  himself.  Not  a  woman  of  the 
many  whom  he  loved  —  and  by  each  one  of 
them  he  seems  to  have  been  beloved  in  return 
—  ever  complained  that  she  had  been  trifled 
with  or  wronged.  We  have  seen  how  Fred- 
erika  and  Lili  received  him  in  after  years  ;  how 
tenderly  regardful  was  Frau  von  Stein  on  her 
death-bed  ;  how  devoted  to  him  was  his  wife. 
When  he  was  sixty-seven,  Kestner's  wife,  who 
more  than  forty  years  before  had  so  troubled 
his  heart  that  he  could  depict  with  a  pen  of 
fire  the  "  sufferings  of  the  young  Werther," 
she,  now  a  widow  and  the  mother  of  twelve 
children,  visited  him  at  Weimar. 

But  there  was  one  love  to  which  his  fidelity 
was  unswerving,  with  whom  he  never  had  a 
coldness  or  a  quarrel,  and  whom  to  have  de- 


LOVES.  195 

serted  would  have  been  his  ruin.     Who  she 
was  he  tells  in  the  following 

PARABLE. 

When  I  to  the  market  hie 

Through  the  throng, 
And  the  pretty  maiden  spy 

The  crowd  among ; 
Go  I  here  she  comes  to  me, 

But  above ; 

No  one  can  about  us  see 
"  How  we  love. 

"  Old  man,  wilt  thou  ne'er  be  quiet  ? 

Ever  maiden ! 
In  the  time  of  youthful  riot 

'T  was  a  Kaetchen. 
Who  is  't  now  makes  thy  days  sweet  ? 

Say,  old  youth." 
Look  there,  how  she  me  doth  greet,  — 

It  is  TRUTH. 


VI. 

FAUST. 

FAUST  is  the  poetical  reverberation  of 
Goethe's  individual  life,  an  artistic  transfigure- 
ment  through  a  many-toned  song  —  by  one 
who  had  a  genius  for  such  singing  —  of  the 
passions,  thoughts,  strivings,  doubts,  conflicts, 
acquisitions,  upreachings,  of  a  great  poet  and 
a  great  man,  a  deep-thoughted,  warm-souled, 
well-poised  man,  whose  profuse  gifts  were 
crowned  with  a  rare  literary  gift  of  fullest,  fin- 
est, most  perspicuous  expression.  In  earliest 
manhood  Goethe  conceived  his  Faust y  and  fin- 
ished it  in  his  eighty-second  year,  thus  carry- 
ing it  in  him  and  with  him  for  sixty  years  of 
the  most  variably  productive,  and  the  most 
continuously  and  methodically  active  life,  and, 
may  it  not  be  added,  the  most  successful  in  the 
achievement  of  its  many  high  aims,  that  was 
ever  lived  on  earth. 

Goetz  von  Berlichingen  was  no  sooner  con- 
ceived than  it  was  begun,  no  sooner  begun 
than  it  went  rapidly  to  completion.  '  Goetz  was 


FAUST.  197 

local  and  partial.  Werther,  too,  swung  in  a 
small  circle,  albeit  one  with  the  'intensity  of  a 
whirlpool.  These  two,  sent  forth  before  Goethe 
was  twenty-four,  launched  him  upon  the  world, 
and  gave  the  first  strong  impulse  to  the  fame 
which,  at  first  hanging  round  him  like  a  caress- 
ing breeze,  strengthened  with  every  decade  of 
his  lengthened  career,  and  to  his  tomb  blew  in- 
cense from  all  the  highest  hearts  in  Christen- 
dom. 

Egmont  was  begun  about  the  same  time ; 
but  here  Goethe  felt  that  greater  knowledge  of 
history  was  needed  than  he  then  had,  and,  what 
is  more,  knowledge  of  the  spirit  of  history,  which 
only  years  of  active,  storied  living  can  bring. 
Thence  he  did  not  finish  Egmont  till  twenty 
years  later.  Faust  was  conceived  among  the 
first,  but  not  published  till  1 790,  and  then  as  a 
fragment,  its  author  soon  discovering  that  the 
compass  which  such  a  subject  demands  for  its 
fitting  presentation,  demands  too  the  multiform 
experience  of  an  abounding,  earnest  life. 

When  in  1 808,  in  his  fifty-ninth  year,  Goethe 
published  the  First  Part  complete,  he  dedicated 
it,  not  to  the  present  or  to  a  future,  but  to  a 
past  generation,  to  those  dearly-remembered 
ones,  the  companions  of  his  early  manhood,  the 
most  of  whom  had  already  passed  from  the 
earth :  — 


198  GOETHE. 

"  They  hear  them  not,  the  following  songs, 
The  souls  to  whom  the  first  I  sang-" 

Overmastered  by  such  memories  and  by  Faus- 
tic  visions,  he  concludes  :  — 

"  What  I  possess  I  see  as  in  the  distance, 
And  what  is  gone  comes  back  in  firm  consistence." 

In  all  Goethe's  pages  there  is  hardly  a  strain 
purer,  warmer  than  this  dedication,  so  tender 
and  deep  is  it,  so  instinct  with  the  heart's  life, 
so  graceful  and  dirge-like. 

Next  to  the  Dedication  tomes  a  Prelude  in 
the  theatre,  the  three  interlocutors  being  the 
manager,  the  poet,  and  the  representative  of 
fun.  Thus  to  present  in  contrast  what  is  pop- 
ular and  what  is  excellent,  what  fills  the  thea- 
tre and  what  delights  the  capable  auditor,  what 
draws  and  what  lasts,  this  is  the  conception  of 
a  poetic  brain  ;  and  to  put  it  into  the  words 
we  find  here,  implies,  besides  a  poet,  a  high 
poet  who  had  practiced  the  function  of  Director 
of  a  theatre.  The  Manager  calls  upon  the 
poet  to  furnish  him  a  piece  which  shall  make 
the  crowd  fight  round  the  ticket-office  for  seats, 
like  a  hungry  throng  round  a  baker's  shop 
for  bread  in  a  famine.  The  Poet's  answer 
opens  :  — 

"  O  speak  not  of  that  motley  crowd 
At  view  of  which  the  spirit  flags  ; 


FAUST.  199 

Hide  it  from  sight,  the  billowy,  loud, 
That  us,  unwilling,  downward  drags  : " 

and  ends  with  one  of  those   generic   distichs 
often  met  with  in  Goethe  :  — 

"  What  shines  is  only  for  the  moment  good : 
The  genuine  is  for  future  ages  food." 

One  speech  of  the  "  Poet "  I  translate  in  full, 
it  is  so  characteristic  and  so  fine  :  — 

"  Then  me  too  give  the  times  once  more 
When  I  myself  was  still  a-growing, 
When  streams  of  song  from  swollen  core 
Unceasingly  were  lifeful  flowing, 
When  the  world  still  by  mist  was  shrouded, 
And  every  bud  with  wonder  fraught, 
When  I  the  thousand  blossoms  sought 
That  all  the  scented  valleys  crowded. 
Nothing  had  I,  yet  all  was  mine  ; 
Deep,  yearnful  happiness,  illusion  fine. 
Give  me  untamed  those  quick  desires, 
The  never  quenched  thirst  for  truth, 
The  strength  of  hate,  love's  mighty  fires  ; 
O  give  to  me  again  my  youth." 

It  was  Swift,  I  believe,  who  said  that  no  wise 
man  ever  wished  himself  younger.  The  say- 
ing is  so  significant  it  deserves  to  be  said  by  a 
wiser  man  than  Swift.  Goethe  being  one  of 
the  wisest,  this  wish  for  a  return  of  youth  could 
not  be  the  expression  of  a  permanent  mental 
state  in  himself.  Of  the  poetic  mind  the  most 
precious  privilege  is,  that,  to  its  last  day,  buds 


2OO  GOETHE. 

are  "  with  wonder  fraught,"  that  Nature  looks 
ever  fresh  and  blooming,  and  that  the  mystery 
in  which  all  things  are  shrouded  •  has  even  a 
diviner  look  as  insight  deepens  with  years. 
One  mark  of  genius  is  "  the  carrying  on  of  the 
freshness  and  feelings  of  childhood  into  the 
powers  of  manhood."  This  is  said  by  Cole- 
ridge, and  the  saying  draws  import  from  his 
profound  and  poetic  consciousness.  That 
Goethe  did  not  intend  the  longing  for  youth  to 
be  taken  as  representative  of  the  poetic  char- 
acter is  shown  by  the  ironic  comment  of  the 
comic  personage,  which  thus  begins  :  — 

"  Of  youth,  dear  friend,  thou  sure  hast  need 
When  in  the  battle  foemen  press  thee, 
When  lovely  girls,  with  tender  deed, 

Hang  on  thy  neck  and  would  caress  thee." 

This  prelude  and  dedication  are,  by  their 
beauty  and  significance,  a  becoming  prolusion 
to  the  great  tragedy  which,  as  Goethe  said  to 
Eckerman,  "  ranges  from  Heaven  through  Earth 
to  Hell,"  and,  it  may  be  added,  reascends  at 
the  close  of  the  Second  Part  to  whence  it 
started.  The  "  Prologue  in  Heaven,"  for  which 
there  is  example  in  the  first  chapter  of  Job,  is 
a  poetic  invigoration  of  the  Faust  legend.  By 
the  concurrent  judgment  of  all  the  most  aesthet- 
ically competent,  the  Hymn  of  the  Archangels 


FAUST.  201 

has  long  since  taken  its  place  as  one  of  the 
grandest  poems  in  literature.  The  following 
translation,  first  printed  forty  years  since,  I 
have  studiously  revised,  and  offer  it  as  one  of 
the  scores  of  attempts  that  have  been  made  to 
render  into  English  this  "  astonishing  Chorus," 
as  Shelley  calls  it. 

THE  LORD  ;  THE  HEAVENLY  HOSTS  ;   afterwards  MEPHIS- 

TOPHELES. 

The  three  Archangels  come  forward. 

RAPHAEL. 

The  Sun  in  wonted  guise  is  sounding 

With  brother-spheres  co-rival  song, 
On  his  predestined  journey  bounding 

With  thunder's  ordered  movement  strong. 
The  sight  to  Angels  vigor  lendeth, 

Though  none  his  being  fathom  may ; 
The  works  whose  reach  our  thought  transcendeth 

Are  grand  as  on  Creation's  day. 

GABRIEL. 

And  swift  and  swift  the  earth  is  streaming, 

With  changeful  pomp  of  gloom  and  light ; 
In  hues  of  Paradise  now  beaming, 

Now  deep  enwrapt  in  awful  night ; 
The  sea,  against  broad  rivers  striving, 

On  rock  upheaves  its  foam  and  wrath, 
And  rock  and  sea  are  onward  driving 

In  the  swift  globe's  eternal  path. 


2O2  GOETHE. 

MICHAEL. 

And  storms  in  conflict  wild  are  pouring 

From  land  to  sea,  from  sea  to  land, 
And  form,  while  raging  fierce  and  roaring, 

Of  purpose  deep  a  circling  band. 
There  flashes  lightning's  baleful  glaring 

Before  the  coming  thunder's  way 
But  these,  O  Lord,  thy  orders  bearing, 

Revere  the  calm  gait  of  thy  day. 

ALL  THREE. 

The  sight  to  Angels  vigor  lendeth, 

Though  none  thy  being  fathom  may ; 
Thy  works,  whose  might  all  thought  transcendeth, 

Are  grand  as  on  Creation's  day. 

The  voice  of  Mephistopheles,  right  upon  the 
close  of  such  a  Chorus,  is  a  leap  from  light  into 
sudden  darkness.  Mephisto  is  a  cross  between 
Voltaire  and  Caliban  ;  an  irreverent,  witty 
mocker,  like  Voltaire,  but  truncated  of  Vol- 
taire's humane  sensibilities  and  his  aspiration 
for  the  beautiful,  in  place  of  which  he  has  the 
utterly  unlighted  moral  nature  of  Caliban, 
"  which  any  print  of  goodness  will  not  take." 
Having  the  intellect  of  the  higher  type  of  man 
unilluminated  by  the  higher  sympathies,  he 
exhibits  the  cynical  bitterness  consequent  on 
spiritual  deprivation.  In  his  first  speech  to  the 
Lord,  after  aiming  ironically  at  the  "  high 
words "  of  the  Angels,  he  adds,  "  My  pathos 


FAUST.  2O3 

sure  would  make  thee  laugh."  But  most  dis- 
tinctly he  shows  us  what  he  is  in  his  picture  of 
human  nature,  he,  with  his  utter  moral  and 
spiritual  deficiency,  being  able  only  to  see 
man's  littleness.  His  speech  to  the  Lord  he 
thus  concludes  :  — 

"  A  little  better  would  he  live, 

Him  wouldst  thou  not  the  show  of  heaven's  light  give  ; 

He  calls  it  Reason,  and  uses  it  to  be 

Beastlier  than  any  beast  you  see. 

He  seems  to  me,  saving  your  reverence, 

Like  one  of  these  long-legged  grasshoppers, 

Which  ever  flies  and  flying  springs, 

And  in  the  grass  its  old  song  sings. 

If  only  he  would  in  the  grass  lie  close  ; 

But  he  in  every  dirt-hole  sticks  his  nose." 

Mephisto  is  a  boundless  resource,  giving 
Goethe  great  freedom  of  play,  because  Goethe 
had  it  in  himself  to  stretch  behind  Mephisto,  as 
background,  a  far  sun-lit  horizon  of  humanity. 

From  the  puppet-plays  seen  in  his  boyhood, 
and  from  the  current  legends  and  printed  narra- 
tives of  the  doings  of  Doctor  Faustus,  Goethe 
got  the  first  hint  of  his  Faust.  Goethe's  Devil 
is  another  personage  from  the  Satan  of  Job. 
Mephisto  has  the  benefit  of  modern  culture, 
especially  that  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He 
is  a  polished,  well-bred  man  of  the  world.  Lord 
Chesterfield  might  have  invited  him  to  dinner, 


2O4  GOETHE. 

to  give  his  son  an  exemplification  of  the  man- 
ners of  a  gentleman.  Nor  would  he  have  pro- 
tested angrily  against  the  tissue  of  Meph- 
isto's  talk.  Nor  to-day  would  his  Lordship's 
many  well-dressed  pupils  so  protest.  Instant 
arrest,  by  a  sneer,  of  any  jet  of  aspiration,  iron- 
ical flings  at  any  pretense  to  purity  and  inno- 
cence beyond  the  age  of  childhood,  sensual- 
ity draped  with  a  captivating  veil,  thrown  over 
it  so  that  it  shall  not  offend  a  drawing-room 
taste,  persiflage  accepted  as  the  best  criticism  : 
need  we  go  back  to  Chesterfield  and  European 
courts  of  a  hundred  years  since,  to  find  social 
gatherings  where  such  is  the  tone,  where  an 
invisible  Mephistopheles  is  the  sprightliest 
guest  ?  The  detractive,  down-pulling,  cynical, 
negative  element  in  our  human  mixture  is  ever 
active,  and  is  ever  embodied  in  excess  in  in- 
dividuals who,  sunk  into  the  petty  self,  where 
they  find  no  folds  for  expansion,  discountenance 
virtuous  effort,  scorn  enthusiasm,  jeer  at  all 
plans  for  the  betterment  of  human  conditions. 

But  Mephistopheles  has  a  deeper  quality  and 
function.  When  Goethe,  like  the  author  of 
Job,  gives  up.  Faust  to  the  temptations  of  the 
Devil,  he  makes  the  Lord  say  :  — 

"  Sleep  man's  activity  is  aye  a  wooing, 
Easily  he  takes  to  unconditioned  rest ; 


FAUST.  20$ 

Thence,  one  will  be  as  comrade  'mong  the  best 
,        Who  goads  him,  and  as  Devil  must  be  doing." 

Here  Mephisto  represents  the  animal  nature 
of  man,  his  vis  a  tergo,  the  driving  power  of 
desire,  which,  pushed  to  extreme,  brings  him  to 
ruin,  but,  here  on  earth,  shares  his  being  in  an 
'indissoluble  partnership  with  his  upper  powers 
of  reason  and  emotion.  And  these  powers 
would  languish  but  for  the  fire  of  animal  im- 
pulse, which  they  in  turn  temper  and  guide. 
Possibly  in  man's  struggles  for  and  in  the  flesh 
the  soul  is  braced  and  tutored  for  the  higher 
phase,  when,  free  of  the  body,  it  shall  glow  with 
more  steadiness  and  brilliancy  through  an  early 
earth-drawn  vigor. 

On  earth  the  motive  power  of  self-seeking 
desire  drives  man  into  culpable  aberrations, 
from  which  an  innate  capacity  for  the  better 
retrieves  him,  or  has  in  the  long  run  the  re- 
source to  retrieve  him.  Thus  the  Lord,  when 
giving  Mephisto  leave  to  try  himself  on  Faust, 
tells  him  he  will  stand  abashed  when  he  is 
defeated  ;  for,  — 

"  A  worthy  man,  even  in  his  darkest  wrath, 
Has  yet  a  consciousness  of  the  right  path." 

And  now  Faust  makes  his  entry  in  that  long, 
plaintive,  self-tormenting  soliloquy,  which  ends 
by  his  throwing  himself  desperately  upon  nee- 


206  GOETHE. 

romancy.  Necromancy  is  a  bootless  effort  to 
get,  by  a  short  cut,  insights  to  divine  knowl- 
edge, which  can  only  be.got  through  the  nobler 
capabilities  of  reason  and  spirituality.  With  a 
feverish  hope  he  unclasps  the  book  of  the  great 
magician,  Nostradamus.  This  scene  opens 
with  Faust  seated  at  his  desk,  late  in  the  night, 
in  a  narrow,  high-vaulted  Gothic  room.  He 
thus  begins  his  wail :  — 

"  Ah  me  !     Have  now  philosophy, 
Juristic  jargon,  medicine  too, 
And  even,  alas  !  theology  — 
All  have  I  studied  through  and  through  ; 
And,  wretched  fool  !  with  all  my  lore 
Am  no  bit  wiser  than  before." 

Goethe's  own  mental  restlessness  in  early 
manhood,  his  disappointment  with  life  at  its 
threshold,  his  depression  from  yearnings  un- 
satisfied by  his  studies,  all  this,  told  in  his  auto- 
biography, formed  a  prerequisite  matrix  for  the 
conception  and  moulding  of  Faust.  This  youth- 
ful discontent  may  be  morbid  as  well  as 
healthy  :  it  may  result  from  feebleness  and 
want  of  balance,  as  well  as  from  streaming  full- 
ness of  faculties.  In  Goethe,  who  from  his 
childhood  had  been  eagerly  gathering  knowl- 
edge, and  whose  nature  was  forth-reaching, 
aspiring,  imaginative,  it  betokened  the  intellect- 


FAUST.  207 

ual  genius  and  the  naturalist,  —  the  naturalist  in 
the  broadest,  finest  sense  ;  the  man  who  looked 
to  Nature  and  her  resources,  so  vast  and  so 
minute,  so  prodigal  and  so  definite,  so  material 
and  so  spiritual,  for  precepts  and  solutions. 
He  was  a  naturalist  as  poet,  as  man  of  science, 
as  practical  worker.  How  sound  and  import- 
ant, and  how  naturalistic  is  his  maxim,  that  we 
can  only  thoroughly  know  what  we  have  prac- 
ticed or  felt. 

Nature,  with  her  infinite  and  beautiful  phe- 
nomena and  her  unfailing  laws,  —  laws  at  once 
simple  and  subtle,  —  Nature  is  God's  book. 
What  poor  Faust,  and,  in  large  measure,  Goethe 
too,  had  been  giving  all  his  time  to,  was  man's 
books,  and  books  that  were  not  man's  calm, 
conscientious,  religious,  disinterested  interpre- 
tations of  God's  book,  but  shadowy  substitu- 
tions for  that  book,  and  substitutions  which, 
while  they  were  utterly  insufficient,  were  arro- 
gant and  worldly-minded.  In  one  of  Mr.  Bay- 
ard Taylor's  many  valuable  elucidative  notes  to 
his  translation  of  Faust  is  the  following :  — 

"  In  the  Augsburg  puppet-play,  Faust  ex- 
claims :  '  I,  too,  have  long  investigated,  have 
gone  through  all  arts  and  sciences.  I  became 
a  Theologian,  consulted  authorities,  weighed  all, 
tested  all,  —  polemics,  exegesis,  dogmatism.  All 


208  GOETHE. 

was  babble  :  nothing  breathed  of  Divinity !  I 
became  a  Jurist,  endeavored  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  Justice,  and  I  learnt  how  to  dis- 
tort justice.  I  found  an  idol,  shaped  by  the 
hands  of  self-interest  and  self-conceit,  a  bastard 
of  Justice,  not  herself.  I  became  a  Physician, 
intending  to  learn  the  human  structure,  and 
the  methods  of  supporting  it  when  it  gives 
way ;  but  I  found  not  what  I  sought,  —  I  only 
found  the  art  of  methodically  murdering  men. 
I  became  a  Philosopher,  desiring  to  know  the 
soul  of  man,  to  catch  Truth  by  the  wings  and 
Wisdom  by  the  forelock  ;  and  I  found  shadows, 
vapors,  follies,  bound  into  a  system.'  " 

The  man  who  wrote  that  was  a  worthy  pre- 
cursor of  Goethe,  and  was  wise  much  beyond 
his  generation,  aye,  and  beyond  our  so  vaunted 
age.  He  who  studies  only  man's  books,  whether 
medical,  juridical,  philosophical,  or  theological, 
gets  further  from,  instead  of  nearer  to  God  .and 
his  will.  (And  the  wish  to  get  nearer  to  God 
is  a  divine,  irrepressible  instinct  in  the  breast 
of  man,  which  all  healthy  studies  would  further.) 
Thence  man's  mind,  as  at  once  the  great  spring  • 
and  reservoir,  gets  partially  dried  up,  and  turbid 
and  unhealthy. 

When,  through  the  forms  of  Nostradamus's 
book  of  magic,  Faust,  with  terrible  agitation, 


FAUST.  209 

invokes  the  spirits,  a  red  flame  leaps  out  of  the 
air,  and  in  the  flame  a  spirit,  from  which  Faust 
recoils,  exclaiming,  with  averted  face,  "  Horrible 
Visage  ! "  The  spirit  so  taunts  him  for  his 
fears  that  he  gains  courage  to  answer  in  kind  : 

"  Flame-seed,  shall  I  thee  fear  ? 
'Tis  I,  'tis  Faust,  thy  peer." 

Then  it  is  that  the  spirit,  who  is  the  earth- 
spirit,  describes  his  function  in  those  com- 
pressed, buoyant,  meaning-full  lines,  ending 
with  that  magnificent  couplet,  in  uttering  which 
the  great  poet  seems  to  have  caught  hearing  of 
the  boundless  music  of  creation :  — 

"  I  foam  life's  flood,  act's  bubbling  blood 
With  a  stormful  breath, 
In  a  ceaseless  motion  ! 
Be  it  birth  or  death, 
An  eternal  ocean, 
Or  shirting  or  fleeing, 
A  fiery  being, 

I  ply  the  resounding  great  loom  of  old  Time, 
And  work  at  the  Godhead's  live  vesture  sublime." 

The  spirit  soon  vanishes,  and  in  a  few  mo- 
ments there  is  a  knocking  at  the  door  of  Faust, 
who  exclaims  :  — 

'*  O  death  !     I  know  it  —  that  is  my  famulus." 

The  famulus  was  half  student,  half  servant, 
and  in  this  one  Goethe  would  represent  the 
14 


210  GOETHE. 

dull,  prosaic,  acquiring,  but  not  aspiring,  still 
less,  inspired,  industrious  gatherer.  Wagner  is 
the  spokesman  of  the  flattest  commonplace,  of 
shallow  philistinian  self-complacency,  a  literary 
man  in  a  Pickwickian  sense,  without  soul  for 
strength  or  originality  or  poetry,  one  who  lives 
on  the  husks  of  thought.  Faust,  though  almost 
unbearably  bored,  treats  the  poor  fellow  with 
respect,  and  before  he  dismisses  him,  on  ac- 
count of  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  utters,  in 
answer  to  his  platitudes,  much  good  irony,  of 
which  take  this  as  a  sample  :  — 

'  A  sealed  book  are  the  Annals  of  the  past ; 
What  you  the  spirit  of  the  ages  find 
Is  but  the  writer's  individual  mind, 
In  which  the  bygone  times  are  glassed." 

The  departure  of  Wagner  is  followed  by  a 
long,  rather  too  long,  soliloquy  in  the  same  tone 
of  despondency,  in  which  he  winds  himself  up 
to  the  pitch  of  suicide.  He  has  raised  the 
deadly  bowl  to  his  lips,  when  his  hand  is  ar- 
rested by  the  breaking  forth  of  Easter  bells 
and  a  chorus  of  Angels :  — 

"  Christ  is  arisen  ! 
Joy  to  him  bringing, 
Whom  the  stain-flinging, 
Inherited,  clinging 
Faults  did  imprison." 


FAUST.  211 

In  the  scene  "  Outside  the  Gate,"  Goethe 
presents  pictures  drawn  with  the  sharp  fidelity 
of  frequent,  thorough  study  from  nature,  lighted 
with  that  penetrating,  divulging  light  which 
streams  only  from  the  poetic  mind.  The  mov- 
ing concourse  of  apprentices,  servant-girls,  stu- 
dents, tradesmen's  daughters,  soldiers,  citizens, 
beggars,  issuing  out  of  a  German  town  for  a 
Sunday-afternoon  walk,  passes  before  us  so  dis- 
tinctly, though  rapidly,  that  their  various  na- 
tures and  characteristics  are  laid  bare,  and 
through  a  medium  of  humor  and  irony  that 
gives  the  picture  an  everlasting  charm.  The 
comfortable,  self-satisfied  citizen  has  no  misgiv- 
ings but  that  he  is  disclosing  a  perfectly.proper 
feeling  when  to  his  companion  he  says  : 

"  Naught  better  know  I,  on  Sundays  and  holidays, 
Than  talk  of  war  and  the  fierce  deeds  of  war, 
When  away  there,  off  in  Turkey  afar, 
One  fighting  people  on  another  one  preys." 

A  little  further  out  we  come  upon  peasants 
dancing  under  the  linden  trees.  After  a  char- 
acteristic song,  such  as  only  Goethe  could 
write,  they  gather  round  Faust,  an  old  peasant 
being  spokesman,  to  utter  thanks  to  him  for 
having,  with  his  father,  saved  so  many  from  the 
plague  shortly  before.  When  Wagner,  gaping 
philistine  that  he  is,  congratulates  Faust,  as 


212  GOETHE. 

they  pass  further,  on  the  feelings  he  must  en- 
joy at  receiving  the  homage  of  this  crowd, 
Faust,  with  sad  retrospect,  tells  him  how  less 
than  little  they  did,  concluding  with  that  bitter 
self-denunciation  which  should  be  printed  in 
letters  of  gold  where  all  medical  students  could 
daily  read  it :  — 

"  And  thus  with  most  infernal  pills, 
Among  these  valleys  and  these  hills, 

Far  worse  than  did  the  pest  we  blazed. 
Thousands  did  I  the  poison  give  ; 
They  withered  oS,  and  I  must  live 

To  hear  the  audacious  murderers  praised." 

Faust  comes  home  accompanied  by  a  strange 
poodle-dog,  who  turns  out  to  be  Mephistopheles. 
Through  scenes  of  magical  diablerie,  enacted 
by  Mephisto  according  to  the  popular  legend, 
at  his  first  interview  with  Faust,  there  peep 
subtle  satiric  meanings.  Finally  Faust  makes 
his  compact  with  Mephistopheles.  The  reader 
may  scarcely  be  aware  how  close  this  comes  to 
himself.  In  Faust  is  only  presented  with  the 
ingenuity  and  the  richness  of  invention,  and 
the  breadth,  beauty,  and  power  of  a  great  poet, 
what  we  are  all  of  us  doing  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  namely,  selling  ourselves  to  the  DeviL 

A  man  who  tries  to  reach  contentment  and 
happiness  by  giving  the  reins  to  his  greeds  and 


FAUST.  213 

his  lusts,  is  attempting  as  possible  a  thing  as 
he  who  would  make  a  torch  out  of  an  icicle. 
Every  time  the  glittering  spear  is  thrust  into 
the  flame  to  be  lighted,  some  of  its  substance 
is  melted  off;  and  the  hotter  the  flame,  the  less 
will  the  icicle  become  a  torch,  and  the  more 
rapid  will  be  the  dissolution.  Faust,  under  the 
fascination  of  Mephistopheles,  makes  the  futile 
attempt ;  but  he,  through  inward  higher  re- 
sources, recovers  in  time  to  save  himself,  as, 
in  the  first  scene  between  the  Lord  and  Meph- 
istopheles, it  was  declared  he  would.  Faust 
sows  his  wild  oats  with  a  sublime  prodigality. 

But  many  people,  of  less  passionate  and  pow- 
erful natures  than  Faust,  do  not  recover  on 
earth,  but,  through  habitual,  even  petty,  selfish- 
ness, go  down  to  the  grave  (for  with  them  it  is 
a  going  down)  under  the  grip  of  Mephistoph- 
eles. Others  are  so  fascinated  by  the  prom- 
ises of  desire  and  selfishness,  which  are  the 
deceitful  devil  within  us,  that  they  prostitute 
themselves  to  indulgence  and  active  egotism 
their  whole  earth-life  long ;  while  Mephisto, 
with  the  heartless  irony  for  which  he  is  noted, 
makes  them  follow  on  foot  through  the  mire,  he 
sitting  on  his  fearful  steed  with  that  careless 
security  so  well  given  by  Retch  in  his  outline 
of  the  ride  of  Faust  and  Mephistopheles. 


214  GOETHE. 

Whenever  a  man  tries  to  help  himself  at  the 
cost  of  another  ;  whenever  he  heaps  'within 
himself  sensual  and  worldly  fruition  ;  when- 
ever he  postpones  the  needs  of  the  soul  to  the 
luxuries  of  the  senses  ;  whenever,  in  short,  he 
strives  to  make  a  torch  of  an  icicle,  he  has  sold 
himself,  in  so  far,  to  the  Devil.  In  this  com- 
pact there  is  one  clause  certain  to  be  fulfilled, 
and  that  is  the  forfeiture  exacted  by  the  Devil 
for  his  services  ;  in  other  words,  the  unfailing 
loss  of  so  much  spiritual  power,  the  sinking  of 
the  higher  flame,  for  every  excess  of  sensual  or 
selfish  gratification.  So  that  those  who  keep  on 
selling  themselves,  from  day  to  day  and  year  to 
year  until  Death  seizes  them,  get  into  such  un- 
manly, unheavenly  habits  on  earth,  that  in  the 
sphere  beyond  they  have  to  serve  a  lengthened 
term  of  purgatorial  disinfection  before  they  can 
find  heaven  there. 

This  is  the  deep  moral  of  Faust  masked  be- 
hind a  mediaeval  legend  set  forth  with  the  glit- 
tering, gorgeous  pomp  of  superlative  poetry. 

I  will  not  dwell  on  every  scene  of  the  won- 
derful diorama  unrolled  by  the  poet,  albeit  each 
is  as  tempting  as  the  one  before  it.  That 
where  a  student  comes  to  consult  the  renowned 
Doctor  Faust  as  to  his  studies,  and  Mephisto 
puts  on  Faust's  gown  and  receives  him,  is  one 


FAUST.  21$ 

of  the  richest  in  humor,  wit,  and  keenest  satire. 
Of  the  soliloquy  of  Mephisto,  when  Faust  has 
retired  and  the  student  has  not  yet  entered, 
I  make  room  for  four  lines,  the  first  two  and 
the  last  two,  which  compress  the  whole  dozen 
lying  between  them  :  — 

"  Science  despise,  and  Reason's  light, 
Which  are  of  man  the  highest  might,  — 
Then  e'en  had  he  not  sold  him  to  the  Devil, 
He  still  would  surely  come  to  evil." 

The  compass  of  the  first  line  is  contracted  by 
the  word  Reason,  the  only  one  we  have  in  Eng- 
lish to  render  the  German  Vernunft ;  but  Ver- 
nunft  embraces  far  more  than,  and  other  than, 
the  highest  intellectual  power,  —  Reason  ;  it 
implies  with  this  the  highest  spiritual  power 
in  man,  —  his  emotional  capacity. 

The  first  place  Faust  and  Mephisto  visit 
when  they  set  forth  on  their  adventures  is  a 
famous  resort  in  Leipzig,  familiar  to  Goethe 
in  his  student-days,  called  Auerbach's  Cellar, 
"  where  every  day's  a  festival."  This  scene  is 
admirably  low  comic,  and  gives  Mephisto  a 
field  for  his  necromantic  tricks.  By  its  rollick- 
ing fun  it  forms,  too,  an  artistic  counterpoise  to 
the  dread  tragedy  that  is  about  to  begin.  The 
next  scene,  in  the  Witches'  Kitchen,  plays  a 
similar  part,  besides  having  the  practical  end  of 


2l6  GOETHE 

getting  the  Witch  to  brew  the  draught  that  shall 
renew  Faust's  youth.  Both  scenes  show  the 
flexibility  of  Goethe's  powers,  and  the  truth  to 
nature  which,  through  the  most  fantastic  sport, 
underlies  every  presentation.  And  even  such 
scenes  show  his  accurate  and  multifarious 
knowledge  of  life,  a  knowledge  gathered  by  the 
persistency  of  many  talents  and  a  rare  capacity 
of  observation,  enlightened,  sharpened,  refined 
by  genius. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  chief,  the  great 
personage  of  the  drama,  the  marvelous  Mar- 
garet. Here  we  have  the  resources  and  attrac- 
tions and  the  transmuted  harvests  of  feeling, 
exhibited  with  the  trueness  of  a  deep,  sure  sen- 
sibility, and  the  clearness  of  the  brightest  Art, 
—  exhibited  through  a  representative  of  wom- 
anhood in  its  terrible  liabilities.  In  our  hu- 
man life-drama  on  earth  woman  is  the  protag- 
onist of  feeling. 

Margaret  is  one  of  those  creations  that  as- 
tonish us  forever  by  their  simplicity.  A  girl 
with  only  the  education  that  is  to  be  had  in  the 
narrow  lodgings  in  the  back  street  of  a  German 
town ;  whose  circle  of  thought  hardly  reaches 
to  the  larger  thoroughfares  ;  whose  life  is  a  con- 
tented routine  of  spinning  and  cleaning  in  the 
plainest  home,  —  this  girl,  without  losing  her 


FAUST.  217 

homeliness  (in  the  pure  original  meaning  of 
the  word),  without  enlarging  her  very  lim- 
ited vocabulary,  or  purifying  her  provincial 
speech,  except  in  the  last  tremendous  scene,  is 
made  to  shine  with  an  immortal  radiance,  a 
lleautiful  possession  to  the  world  forever,  a  fig- 
ure, a  power,  added  to  the  higher  literature  of 
all  nations.  Listen  to  her  love-song  :  — 

"  My  peace  is  gone, 
My  heart  is  sore  ! 
I'll  find  it,  ah  !  never 
And  never  more. 

"  Where  him  I  can't  have 
There  is  my  grave, 
For  me  is  all 
Turned  into  gall. 

"  Ah  !  my  poor  head  ! 
I've  lost  my  wits, 
And  my  poor  brain 
Is  all  in  bits. 

"  My  peace  is  gone, 
My  heart  is  sore  ; 
I'll  find  it,  ah  !  never 
And  never  more. 

"  For  him  only  look  I 
Out  on  the  street, 
From  home  only  go  I 
Him  to  meet. 

"  His  lofty  gait, 
His  noble  size. 


21 8  GOETHE. 

His  mouth's  sweet  smile. 
His  powerful  eyes. 

"  And  of  his  speech 
The  flowing  bliss, 
His  hand's  warm  clasp, 

And,  ah  !  his  kiss. 

I 

"  My  peace  is  gone, 
My  heart  is  sore, 
I'll  find  it,  ah  !  never 
And  never  more. 

"  My  bosom  yearns 
For  him  so  dear. 
Ah  !  could  I  clasp 
And  hold  him  here  ! 
And  kiss  him,  kiss 
Just  as  I  would, 
Upon  his  kisses 
O  !  die  I  could." 

The  songs  in  Faust,  tender  and  pathetic, 
like  this  one>  or  religious,  like  those  that  usher 
in  Easter,  rustic  or  jovial,  like  those  of  the 
peasants  and  the  boon  companions  in  Auer- 
bach's  cellar,  or  the  wild,  wailful  outpourings  of 
the  spirits,  show,  besides  the  far  range  of 
Goethe's  sympathies,  the  lyrical  quality  of  his 
genius.  This,  indeed,  is  shown  in  the  structure 
and  character  of  the  whole  work,  which,  though 
dramatic  in  form  and  in  the  colloquial  develop- 
ment of  the  personages,  is  not  dramatic  in  its 
build  and  foundation.  It  is  not  an  unbroken 


FAUST.  219 

evolution  through  events  caused  by  collisions 
between  the  participants,  events  intimately 
chained  together  in  necessary  sequence  by  the 
individualities  of  the  agents.  Faust  is  a  lyrical 
drama,  and  as  such  has  a  less  compactly  con- 
secutive evolution.  That  it  is  so  detracts  not 
an  iota  from  its  worth.  Its  worth  is  bound  up 
in  that  of  its  author's  genius,  which  was  by  no 
means  exclusively,  but  was  predominantly, 
lyrical.  Goethe,  giving  here  freest  play  to  all 
his  powers,  lyric,  epic,  dramatic,  produced  one 
of  the  masterpieces  of  literature,  hardly  second 
to  any  other  masterpiece.  I  put  in  hardly,  be- 
cause every  time  I  look  anew  into  Faust,  its 
deeps  seem  deeper,  its  beauties  fresher,  its  va- 
riety still  infinite.  In  Shakespeare's  master- 
pieces, and  only  in  them,  there  is  a  warmer 
resplendence  of  diction,  a  more  voluminous  roll 
of  rhythm,  a  bolder  and  readier  leap  of  thought 
when  in  its  finest  fervors  poetic  imagination 
makes  metaphor  its  sudden  steed. 

Of  dramatic  capacity,  Margaret  herself  is  a 
high  exemplification.  And  Martha,  too  ;  do  we 
not  see  her  and  know  her  as  distinctly  as  any 
one  we  daily  meet  in  the  flesh  ?  Her  picture 
is  in  those  two  lines  of  Mephisto  after  he  has 
told  her,  no  doubt  with  his  subtlest  leer,  that  he 
might,  on  conditions,  himself  exchange  rings 


22O  GOETHE. 

with  her,  and  she,  no  doubt  with  her  best  smile, 
answers  him,  showing  no  reluctance. 

MEPHISTO  (aside). 

u  'Tis  high  time  now  I  stirred : 

She's  one  would  hold  the  Devil  himself  to  his  word." 

The  stains  of  Martha  are  not  wholly  from 
within.  The  world  she  lives  in  did  much  to 
dye  them  into  her,  and  to  deepen  them.  Under 
better  conditions  she  might  not  have  been  a 
go-between,  nor  have  driven  her  husband  from 
his  home.  Martha  has  much  need  of  our 
charity,  and,  rightly  read,  even  she  will  help  us 
to  know  that  the  least  stained  of  us  need  charity 
too. 

Those  two  garden  scenes,  how  simple  and 
natural  and  how  profound  they  are  !  I  pause  in 
the  second  one  to  give  my  readers  the  famous 
passage  which  may  be  called  one  of  Goethe's 
confessions  of  faith.  Margaret,  very  woman- 
like, questions  Faust  as  to  his  belief  in  God. 
He  answers :  — 

"  Who  dares  Him  name, 
And  who  proclaim, 
I  believe  in  Him  ? 
Who  that  may, 
Feeling,  say, 
I  believe  in  Him  not  ? 
The  all-infolder, 
The  all-upholder, 


FAUST.  221 

Holds  and  upholds  He  not 

Thee,  me,  Himself? 

Arches  not  heaven  there  above  ? 

Lies  not  the  earth  here  firm  below  ? 

And  mount  not  up  eternal  stars 

Friendly  twinkling  over  us  ? 

Behold  I  thee  not  eye  to  eye, 

And  is  not  all 

Pouring  through  head  and  heart, 

And  weaving  in  eternal  mystery 

Invisibly  visible  around  thee  ? 

Fill  to  its  utmost  scope  therewith  thy  breast, 

And  when  thou'rt  wholly  in  the  feeling  blest, 

Call  it  then  what  thou  wilt  — 

Call  it  bliss  !  soul  !  love  !  God  ! 

I  have  no  name  for  it  ! 

Feeling  is  all  in  all : 

Name  is  but  sound  and  smoke, 

Curling  round  heaven's  glow." 

As  supplement  to  this  I  translate  from 
Chancellor  von  Mueller's  Conversations  a  pas- 
sage which  is  a  still  fuller  confession  of  faith. 
On  the  twenty-ninth  of  April,  1818,  the  Chan- 
cellor drove  with  Goethe  out  to  Dornburg,  near 
Weimar,  where,  in  presence  of  a  lovely  land- 
scape, animated  by  the  beauty  of  the  sights  and 
odors  of  spring,  Goethe  was  in  one  of  his  best 
moods.  Among  other  things  said  by  him 
Mueller  reports  the  following  :  "  The  power  to 
ennoble  the  sensuous,  and  to  give  life  to  the 
deadest  material  through  marriage  to  the  idea, 
is  the  fairest  guarantee  of  our  supersensuous 


222  GOETHE. 

origin.  Man,  much  as  the  earth  attracts  him 
with  her  thousands  of  phenomena,  lifts  his  look 
inquiringly  and  longingly  to  the  heaven  which 
arches  over  him  in  immeasurable  space,  because 
deep  within  himself  he  feels  clearly  that  he  is 
a  citizen  of  that  spiritual  kingdom,  belief  in 
which  we  cannot  set  aside  or  give  up.  In  this 
forefeeling  lies  the  secret  of  the  incessant  striv- 
ing after  an  unknown  end  ;  it  is,  as  it  were,  the 
lever  of  our  searching  and  thinking,  the  tender 
bond  between  poetry  and  reality." 

The  passage  from  one  of  the  Garden  Scenes 
of  Faust  I  have  translated  line  for  line  and 
word  for  word,  clinging  closely  to  the  metre  as 
well  as  to  the  thought  of  the  original.  But  the 
feminine  or  double  rhymes  I  have  not  sought 
to  preserve,  except  where  they  came  easily. 
Thus,  in  the  very  first  lines,  for  the  German 
double  rhymes,  nennen  and  bekennen,  I  have 
the  single  rhymes,  name  and  proclaim.  When 
translating  German  verse,  to  insist  on  finding 
in  English  a  double  rhyme  to  match  in  every 
case  the  German  double  rhyme  seems  to  me  a 
mistake,  and  a  procedure  which  defeats  its  own 
purpose.  The  first  fidelity  required  of  a  trans- 
lator is  fidelity  to  the  idiom  and  habits  of  his 
own  language.  Now,  in  the  matter  of  double 
endings,  the  German  and  English  languages 


FAUST.  223 

are  not  only  unlike  but  opposite.  In  German 
nearly  all  infinitives  of  verbs  as  well  as  their 
inflections,  all  plurals  of  nouns  and  adjectives, 
besides  many  other  words,  have  no  accent  on 
the  last  syllable  ;  and  thence  double  rhymes 
are  so  abundant  that  the  verse-writer  cannot 
avoid  the  very  frequent  use  of  them.  Open  a 
miscellaneous  collection  of  German  poetry,  and 
you  will  find  that  one  half  the  rhymes  are 
double.  Sometimes  in  a  whole  poem  of  over  a 
hundred  lines  every  line  ends  with  a  double 
rhyme.  In  German  this  frequency  of  double 
rhymes,  being  an  unavoidable  result  of  the 
structure  of  the  language,  is  natural  to  the  ear, 
used  from  childhood  to  the  double  ending  of  so 
many  words.  Such  verse  is  melodious  and 
fluent  because  it  is  in  accord  with  the  genius 
of  the  German  tongue.  Not  so  in  English,  for 
here  double  rhymes  are  not  abundant  ;  and 
thence  in  an  English  Anthology  you  have  to 
look  sometimes  through  several  pages  to  find  a 
single  pair  of  double  rhymes.  They  are  not 
organic  in  our  tongue.  Hence,  when  in  trans- 
lating from  German  you  wish  to  keep  pace  with 
the  German  abundance  of  double  rhymes,  you 
have  to  strain  hard  at  phrase  or  meaning,  to 
substitute  roundabout  for  direct  constructions, 
even  to  quit  the  track  of  faithfulness  to  the 


224  GOETHE. 

meaning,  to  sacrifice  sense  to  sound.  And 
then,  after  all  your  labor  and  sacrifice,  even 
when  you  have  succeeded  in  holding  to  the 
sense,  without  additions  or  suppressions,  you 
have  a  page  which  sounds  un-English,  a  page 
through  which  there  runs  a  debilitated  tone. 
Nay  more,  a  long  unbroken  succession  of  double 
rhymes,  not  being  accordant  with  the  structure 
and  habits  of  our  English  tongue,  has  an  un- 
healthy sound,  and  therefore  does  not  render 
faithfully  the  healthy  German  sound  ;  and  so, 
at  last,  after  all  your  efforts,  your  bendings  and 
forcings,  you  fail  of  your  main  purpose. 

Of  all  poets  Goethe  is  the  most  direct  in  his 
diction,  the  simplest  in  his  words.  He  seldom 
transposes  words,  he  never  overloads  them  or 
with  them.  His  style  is  so  admirable  because, 
besides  issuing  out  of  a  richly-endowed  poetic 
mind,  it  is  the  easy  result  of  most  intimate 
union  between  what  he  has  to  say  and  the  how 
to  say  it.  His  thought  clings  closely  to  the 
substance,  whether  that  substance  be  in  a  sen- 
timent, an  object,  a  sensation,  an  idea  ;  and 
his  words  are  the  immediate,  transpicuous  in- 
terpreters of  his  thoughts.  The  translator  of 
Goethe,  besides  other  qualifications,  should  have 
his  pen  stored  with  the  fullest  vocabulary  of 
Anglo-Saxon  English.  If  he  runs  much  into 


FAUST.  22$ 

Latin-English,  whether  for  meanings  or  rhymes, 
he  runs  away  from  his  original,  especially  if 
that  original  be  Faust. 

Another  point  may  as  well  be  mentioned. 
Goethe  is  frequently  irregular  in  the  placing  of 
rhymes  and  in  the  length  of  lines.  In  this  he 
suited  the  wants  or  the  flow  of  the  thought. 
He  would  be  the  first  to  allow  the  translator 
the  same  liberty  for  the  same  motive,  and  would 
not  strictly  require  him  to  be  irregular  in  all 
cases  just  where  the  original  is  so.  By  this 
freedom,  as  by  the  frequent  rejection  of  double 
rhymes,  the  translator  gains  in  ease  and  natu- 
ralness, and  in  essential  fidelity. 

I  pass  over  two  short  scenes,  each  full  of  life 
and  significance,  one  at  the  fountain  and  one 
before  the  shrine,  to  come  to  the  first  death, 
after  which  the  deep  tragedy  flows  rapidly  to 
its  end.  Valentine,  a  soldier,  the  brother  of 
Gretchen,  comes  home  to  find  the  name  of  his 
dear  beautiful  sister  tossed  about  on  the  tongue 
of  scandal.  Mephistopheles  and  Faust  he  sees 
under  Gretchen's  window,  where  Mephisto  sings 
a  song  to  a  guitar.  Valentine  rushes  forward, 
smashes  the  guitar,  and  in  the  fight  which 
ensues  is  run  through  the  body  and  slain, 
reproaching  poor  Gretchen,  who  comes  out 
15 


226  GOETHE. 

of  the  house,  with  her  shame  and  his  death. 
Mephisto  and  Faust  fly. 

Now  is  the  time,  after  seduction  and  blood- 
shed, for  the  Walpurgisnight  on  the  Brocken  in 
the  Hartz  Mountains,  the  Witches'  Festival. 
For  what  does  this  caldron  of  bestiality  and 
extravagance,  of  juiceless  fun  and  gloomy  in- 
sights, of  the  grim  and  the  grotesque,  stand  for, 
except  the  dregs  which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the 
human  heart,  and  now  and  then  blow  them- 
selves up  into  momentary  bubbles,  the  foul 
imaginations  of  Hamlet,  the  black,  jointless 
fancies  that  will  haunt  us,  like  waking  night- 
mares ?  Roots  in  the  mind  this  ghastly  phan- 
tasmagoria has,  or  it  could  not  grow  into  a 
popular  legend  to  be  hung  by  a  great  poet  upon 
the  Brocken. 

Faust  is  momentarily  busied  into  forgetful- 
ness  ;  but  at  the  end  of  the  diabolic  spectacle 
how  tragically  imaginative  is  the  glimpse  of  the 
spectre  of  Gretchen  with  a  thin  red  ribbon 
around  her  neck ! 

Gretchen  (Margaret),  as  poetic  creation,  that 
is,  an  invented  personage  combining  fidelity 
to  every-day  truth  with  features  heightened 
through  genial  transfiguration,  combining  vital 
individuality  with  generic  breadth,  is  not  below 
any  woman  in  Shakespeare :  not  second  to 


FAUST. 


227 


Juliet,  or  Imogen,  or  Ophelia.  By  her  intense 
feminine  loveliness  she  holds  all  hearts,  and  so 
deeply  does  she  throb  with  humanity,  that  we 
love  her  not  for  her  beauty  and  tenderness  only, 
or  her  sufferings,  but,  through  our  fellow-feeling, 
for  her  very  crime.  This  is  the  test  of  Goethe's 
Art,  —  whose  roots  are  in  the  depths  of  his 
own  deep  being,  —  that  by  the  fearful  deed  of 
infanticide  the  whole  previous  structure  is  not 
shattered.  It  receives  a  drapery  of  mourning, 
and  instead  of  repelling  the  sympathetic  reader, 
draws  from  him  only  warmer  tears. 

In  the  last  transcendent  scene,  Gretchen,  in 
prison  the  day  before  her  execution,  half  blind 
with  the  soul's  terrible  darkness,  does  not 
know  Faust,  who  comes  to  rescue  her  :  she  is 
busied,  not  about  herself,  but  about  her  brother, 
her  mother,  her  child,  all  of  whom  have  come 
to  their  death  through  her.  Her  awful  half- 
madness,  how  sublime  it  is,  the  night  in  her 
soul  illuminated  with  an  auroral  streaming,  her 
terrible  words  fitted  by  clear  intelligence, 
whereby  after  a  few  moments  she  knows  Faust, 
and  knows  herself  with  fearful  vividness  !  She 
heeds  not  Faust's  urgent  prayer  to  fly  with 
him.  At  last  he  cries  :  — 

"  Dearest !  dearest !  the  day  is  waking. 


228  GOETHE. 

MARGARET. 

Day  !     Yes,  it  is  come  !     The  last  day  is  breaking  ; 

My  wedding  it  was  to  have  seen  ! 

Tell  no  one  thou'st  already  with  Gretchen  been. 

Alas  for  my  crants  ! 

Well,  so  let  it  be  ! 

We  again  each  other  shall  see  ; 

But  not  at  the  dance. 

The  crowd  is  pressing,  so  silent  all. 

The  square,  the  street, 

Hold  not  their  feet. 

The  wand  is  snapt,  hear  the  bell's  call ! 

Hand  on  me  now  they've  laid  ! 

To  the  block  already  I'm  lashed. 

At  my  neck  flashes  the  blade 

That  at  others  so  often  has  flashed. 

Dumb  lies  the  world  as  the  grave  ! 

FAUST. 
O  !  Had  I  never  been  born  ! 

MEPHISTOPHELES. 

Up  !  already  'tis  morn, 

This  talking,  and  staying  delaying  1 

My  horses  are  neighing. 

Come,  come  !  or  you're  lost. 

MARGARET. 

What  rises  there  so  like  a  ghost  ? 
He  !  He  !  send  him  away  : 
What  seeks  he  on  this  sacred  day  ? 
He  seeks  me. 

FAUST. 
Thou  shalt  live. 


FAUST.  229 

MARGARET. 
Judgment  of  God  !    Myself  to  thee  I  give  ! 

MEPHISTOPHELES. 
Come,  come !  or  I  leave  you  with  her  in  the  lurch. 

MARGARET. 

Thine  am  I,  Father  !     Save  me  ! 
Ye  Angels  !     Ye  holy  ones,  guard  me, 
Camp  ye  around  here  to  ward  me. 
Henry  !  I  shudder  for  thee  ! 

MEPHISTO. 
She  is  judged. 

VOICE,  from  above. 
Is  saved  ! 

Mephistopheles,  representing  the  animal  pas- 
sions and  greeds,  unpurified  by  the  emotions 
and   having   the   understanding   at   their  call, 
how  .ready  he  is  to  condemn,  to  pass  sentence, 
to   punish  ;  while   from   the   upper   region  of 
Love  comes  the  voice,  "  She  is  saved." 
MEPHISTOPHELES  to  FAUST. 
Here  to  me  ! 
Vanishes  with  FAUST. 
VOICE  from  within,  dying  away. 
Henry  !     Henry  ! 

And  the  curtain  falls  on  a  scene  unsurpassed, 
among  the  everlasting  splendors  of  Poetry,  for 


230  GOETHE. 

truth  and  pathos,  and  simple  beauty,  and  aes- 
thetic fineness. 

Margaret  is  saved,  and  Faust,  now  carried 
off  by  Mephisto,  he  too  is  to  be  saved.  And 
so  we  come  to  the  Second  Part  of  Faust. 

Faust  is  to  be  saved  through  activity,  through 
a  high  activity,  and  finally  a  disinterested  ac- 
tivity. This  busy  career  carries  Faust  along 
all  the  broad  highways  of  life,  the  political,  the 
aesthetic,  the  scientific,  —  Art,  Nature,  History. 
What  Goethe  had  witnessed,  participated  in, 
practiced,  mastered,  meditated  on  for  sixty 
years,  here  is  the  stage  (a  far  broader  stage 
than  in  the  First  Part)  to  present  it  all,  com- 
pressed, and  moulded  into  poetic  forms. 

The  Second  Part  of  Faust  is  at  bottom  a 
commentary  on  life,  civilized  life,  in  its  divers 
phases,  its  multifarious  aspects,  shapes,  expres- 
sions, conformations,  and  a  commentary  by  one 
who  had  lived  in  and  through  more  of  these 
phases  and  forms,  and  more  thoroughly,  than 
any  other  man  of  his  time  or  of  any  time  ;  and 
he  at  once  a  practical  worker  and  a  ceaseless 
thinker,  and,  to  crown  all,  a  sovereign  poet. 

Faust  and  Mephistopheles  are  the  pegs  on 
which  to  hang  this  commentary.  We  of  course 
wish  to  know  how  Faust  is  saved,  but  it  is 
more  for  the  sake  of  learning  Goethe's  philoso- 


FAUST.  231 

phy  of  life  than  from  interest  in  Faust.  In- 
deed, Faust  loses  what  little  individuality  he 
had,  and  he  and  Mephisto,  who  is  still  occa- 
sionally sparkling,  are  both  become  mere 
mouthpieces,  mouthpieces,  to  be  sure,  with 
musical  voices  of  a  precious  quality. 

I  shall  give  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  unfolding 
of  the  several  acts,  if  unfolding  can  be  said  of 
parts  between  which  there  is  no  necessary  con- 
nection, except  as  each  one  is  an  arena,  and 
that  but  partially,  for  the  activity  of  Faust  him- 
self. The  sketch  will  be  rapid  because  the 
first  and  great  part  has  already  taken  up  more 
space  than  was  apportioned  to  the  two. 

The  first  scene  opens  with  Faust  lying  rest- 
less, weary,  on  a  flowery  turf  at  twilight,  at- 
tended by  Ariel  and  Fairies.  Ariel  sings  him 
to  sleep,  and  so  steeps  him  in  Nature's  balsams 
as  to  take  away  even  the  stings  of  remorse. 
Faust  awakes  refreshed,  renewed. 

Then  we  are  transported  to  the  Imperial 
Court,  the  Emperor  on  his  throne  surrounded 
by  his  Ministers  and  courtiers,  with  the  As- 
trologer on  his  right  hand.  But  the  Emperor 
misses  and  asks  for  the  Fool,  whose  place  is  on 
the  other  side  of  him.  The  Fool  is  reported  to 
have  just  fallen-  down  drunk.  At  that  moment 
Mephisto  appears,  and  through  a  most  polished 


232  GOETHE. 

and  successful  impudence,  as  is  the  way  with 
gentlemen  of  his  stamp,  gets  possession  of  the 
Fool's  place.  Then  we  have  successively  from 
the  Ministers  picture  on  picture  of  the  universal 
dilapidation  and  impoverishment  and  of  the 
woful  mismanagement  of  public  affairs.  Weak- 
ness and  emptiness  are  everywhere.  Even  the 
Emperor's  cellar  is  exhausted.  This  of  course 
is  just  the  element  for  Mephisto,  who  cannot 
refrain  from  putting  in  a  word,  having  as  little 
modesty  as  any  other  political  adventurer.  But, 
through  that  coincidence  there  is  between 
merely  worldly  and  prudential  sagacity  and  the 
higher  spiritual  wisdom,  Mephisto  says  wise 
things.  He  prompts  the  Astrologer  to  utter 
this  among  other  sound  precepts  :  — 

"  Who  good  would  have,  must  first  be  good  : 
Who  joy  would  have,  must  cool  his  heated  blood." 

And,  after  telling  them  out  of  his  own  mouth 
how  in  their  distress  money  is  to  be  gotten,  he 
concludes  :  — 

"  And  ask  you  who  shall  bring  this  gold  to  light : 
A  man  gifted  with  mind  and  Nature's  might." 

Whereupon  the  Chancellor  exclaims  :  — 

"  Nature  and  Mind  !  To  Christians  this  should  not  be  said. 
Thence  has  the  ban  on  Atheists  been  laid, 
Because  great  danger  is  in  speech  like  that. 
Nature  is  sin,  Mind  is  the  Devil's  self: 


FAUST.  233 

They  nurse  between  them  Doubt,  the  Elf, 
Their  misbegotten,  mongrel  brat." 

Goethe,  even  in  his  comparatively  advanced 
day,  felt  the  blight  of  the  blasphemous  theolog- 
ical teaching,  that  "  Nature  is  sin,  Mind  the 
Devil's  self."  Nay,  do  we  not  still  feel  it  sorely, 
even  in  this,  the  freest  country  on  the  globe  ? 
Are  not  the  free  in  thought  and  inquiry  and 
speech,  earnest  seekers  in  Nature's  inexhausti- 
ble, beautiful  domains,  still  liable  to  be  branded 
as  Infidels  and  Atheists  by  formal  Christians, 
by  pharisaical  Christians,  by  pew-paying  Chris- 
tians, by  all  pseudo-Christians,  whose  name  is 
many  Legions  ?  The  belief  that  Nature  is  sin 
and  the  free  use  of  mind  dangerous,  is  by  no 
means  shut  up  in  the  Middle  and  darker  Ages. 

Nature,  what  is  Nature  ?  All  that  is,  from 
the  clod  under  your  foot,  to  the  furthest  star 
over  your  head,  from  the  commonest  impulse 
of  the  heart  to  the  finest  aspiration  of  the  soul. 
All  phenomena,  mental  and  physical,  psychical 
and  sensible,  spiritual  and  corporal,  are  em- 
braced in  Nature,  are  all  manifestations  of  the 
Supreme  Mind  ;  and  we  who,  with  our  marvel- 
ous faculties,  are  the  highest  manifestation  of 
the  Supreme  Mind  that  we  can  know  of,  we  are 
endowed  with  power  to  observe  and  decipher 
these  phenomena,  with  power  to  learn  the  laws 


234  GOETHE. 

which  govern  them,  laws  spiritual  as  well  as 
physical,  moral  laws  as  well  as  intellectual,  and, 
through  the  discovery  of  law,  with  power  to 
learn  the  will  of  God.  And  the  sure,  true  way 
is  this,  to  learn  that  will ;  for  the  tribunal  is  ever 
open  to  all,  and  witnesses  are  always  waiting  to 
be  called,  and  have  in  them  nothing  but  the 
truth.  Some  of  the  old  Stoics  were  shrewd, 
when  in  their  philosophical  classification  they 
put  the  study  of  the  nature  of  things  and  the 
study  of  the  nature  of  Deity  into  one  and  the 
same  division  ;  and  that  was  a  fine  insight  of 
Epictetus,  when  he  said  that,  besides  the  power 
of  seeing  things  as  they  are,  a  grateful  disposi- 
tion is  needed  to  understand  Providence. 

Men,  or,  I  should  say,  some  of  the  clearer, 
manlier  thinkers  among  men,  are  beginning  to 
be  aware  that  Law,  that  is,  the  will  of  God,  is 
discoverable  in  the  spiritual  and  moral  region 
as  it  has  been  and  is  discovered  in  the  physical, 
and  by  the  same  means,  by  the  observation  and 
collation  of  phenomena,  in  a  truth-loving  spirit. 
That  the  domain  is  deeper,  subtler,  gives  it 
only  a  higher  claim  to  the  best  method.  What 
resistance  was  made  in  times  past  to  discoveries 
in  the  physical  domain,  and  are  still  made,  we 
all  know.  Read  the  ridicule  thrown  on  Morse, 
in  Congress,  for  his  telegraph.  Still  stronger 


FAUST.  235 

will  be  the  resistance  in  the  moral  and  spiritual 
domain  ;  for  here  rooted  beliefs  in  theological 
inventions  which  teach  that  "  Nature  is  sin," 
and  the  vested  interests  of  Priesthoods  are  to 
be  overcome.  But  those  who  believe  cordially 
(not  with  a  mere  notional  belief)  in  God  and 
good,  must  believe  that  in  the  end  truth  will 
triumph  over  the  most  stubborn  resistance. 
Forty  years  ago  who  could  have  dreamed  that 
the  feat  of  Ariel,  of  putting  a  girdle  round  the 
globe  in  forty  minutes  would  be  surpassed  by 
human  science  ?  Enlightened  men,  men  en- 
lightened through  purest  religious  sensibilities 
steadied  by  reason,  are  now  girdling  Heaven, 
binding  Heaven  to  the  Earth  ;  and  in  less  than 
forty  years,  effects  will  be  wrought  by  this  bind- 
ing to  which  those  of  the  terrestrial  telegraph 
will  be  fleeting  and  superficial.  Let  us  return 
to  Faust,  who,  as  one  of  the  inventors  of  the 
mighty  Art  of  Printing,  will  not  have  been  im- 
patient at  the  interruption. 

The  Imperial  German  Court  of  the  Middle 
Ages  is  but  nominally  the  scene  of  the  first 
Act.  The  reality  is  taken  from  France  at  the 
end  of  the  reign  (reign  over  rottenness)  of  Louis 
XV.,  of  which,  together  with  that  of  Louis  XVI. 
and  the  French  Revolution,  Goethe  was  born 
in  time  to  be  an  adult  witness. 


236  GOETHE. 

Mephisto  not  only  amuses  the  king  and 
court,  he  lifts  them  out  of  their  starving  dis- 
tress, by  inventing  paper-money.  A  fine  satiric 
lunge  is  that,  to  make  the  Devil  the  inventor 
of  paper-money.  The  Emperor,  emboldened 
by  the  display  of  Mephisto's  resources,  demands 
of  him  a  sight  of  Helen  and  Paris.  This  de- 
mand Faust  warmly  abets.  Helen  is  made  to 
represent  the  Beautiful,  through  which  in  part 
is  to  be  wrought  the  salvation  of  Faust.  Then 
comes  the  "  Classical  Walpurgis  Night "  which 
is  a  species  of  graduation,  relatively  to  beauty, 
of  the  minor  figures  of  the  Greek  mythology, 
through  whom  and  their  fantastic  movements 
and  speech  Faust  has  to  pass  to  reach  the  high- 
est antique  beauty,  represented  by  Helen.  The 
interlude  of  Helen  takes  up  the  third  Act.  It 
was  part  of  the  legend  that  Faust  was  married 
to  Helen.  Of  this  Goethe  avails  himself  to 
symbolize  by  this  marriage  the'  union  of  an- 
cient and  modern  thought,  representing  modern 
Poetry  by  Euphorion,  who  is  the  offspring  of 
the  union. 

At  the  opening  of  Act  IV.  we  are  glad  to 
have  Mephisto  himself  again.  In  the  second 
and  third  Acts  he  had  been  obliged,  much 
against  the  grain,  to  accommodate  him  to  clas- 
sical forms.  In  the  third  he  appeared  as  Phor- 


FAUST.  237 

kias,  who  is  a  kind  of  antique  she-Mephisto,  a 
rebel  against  the  good  and  the  beautiful.  Faust 
and  he  come  to  the  aid  of  the  Emperor,  who, 
by  misgovernment  and  shallow  selfishness,  has 
caused  a  civil  war.  They  enable  him  to  over- 
come the  hostile  faction,  and  to  Faust,  in  re- 
ward of  his  services,  he  gives  a  domain  on  the 
sea-shore,  where  Faust  finds  scope  for  a  be- 
neficent activity  in  dyking  out  the  ocean,  thus 
adding  a  vast  area  of  land  for  the  comfortable 
habitation  and  support  of  men. 

In  the  bargain  with  Mephisto  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  First  Part,  Faust  bound  himself 
that  (I  here  borrow  from  the  translation  of 
Mr.  Brooks)  — 

"  Whenever  to  the  passing  hour 
I  cry  :  O  stay  !  thou  art  so  fair  ! 
To  chain  me  down,  I  give  thee  power, 
To  the  black  bottom  of  despair." 

And  now,  in  his  old  age,  thinking  of  the  good 
and  durable  work  he  has  done,  he  feels  such 
contentment  that  he  does  exclaim  to  the  mo- 
ment, "  O  stay  !  thou  art  so  fair  !  "  And  so, 
having  forfeited  the  bond,  he  sinks  down,  and 
dies.  And  now  ensues  a  contest  between 
Mephisto  and  his  devils  with  descended  angels 
for  his  soul,  in  which  contest  the  angels  tri- 
umph, and  carry  Faust  up  to  meet  Margaret 
who  awaits  him,  herself  a  blessed  spirit. 


238  GOETHE. 

The  Second  Part  of  Faust  is  to  the  First 
what  the  reflex  of  a  rainbow  is  to  the  primi- 
tive, grand,  beautiful  phenomenon.  It  has  the 
same  colors,  and  the  same  arch  hung  between 
earth  and  heaven,  but  it  is  comparatively  pale 
and  indistinct,  having  only  a  reflected,  not  a 
primary  life.  Feeling  being  the  matrix  in 
which  and  out  of  which  poetry  is  moulded,  it 
becomes  a  law  of  aesthetics  that  feeling  must, 
in  poetry,  generate  the  thought,  not  thought 
the  feeling.  Feeling  is  the  soft,  deep  moisture, 
acting  upon  which  genius  makes  the  rainbow 
spring.  Out  of  a  dry  atmosphere  the  most 
potent  sun  can  evoke  no  bow  in  the  heavens  ; 
nor  with  the  juiceless  materials  of  the  intellect 
can  the  greatest  poet  produce  thorough  poetry. 
Some  admixture  of  feeling  there  must  be  ;  and 
in  the  most  effective  poetry  feeling  is  para- 
mount. In  the  Second  Part  of  Faust  the  in- 
tellect tries  to  be  the  poetic  creator,  instead  of 
being  the  cooperative  agent.  In  all  symbol- 
ism the  intellect  is  primary  and  sovereign,  and 
mimics  poetic  production.  In  the  Second  Part 
of  Faust  symbolic  personages  represent  ideas 
and  purposes,  ideas  and  purposes  political,  ar- 
tistic, scientific,  and  through  them  the  attempt 
is  made  to  give  the  life  and  discipline  of  Faust. 
Suppose  that  Faust  had  been  subjected  to 


FAUST.  239 

earthly,  flesh-and-blood  struggles  with  fellow- 
workers,  competitors  in  the  pursuit  and  prac- 
tice of  Art,  Science,  Politics,  and  that  groups 
in  life-like  complications  had  been  drawn,  with 
various  characterization,  such  as  Goethe  the 
Poet,  and  the  genial  worker  in  all  these  prov- 
inces, had  at  command,  —  an  apprenticeship 
like  that  Wilhelm  Mejster  went  through,  only 
Faust's  would  be  deeper  and  on  a  more  poetic 
plane :  then  we  should  have  had  vivid,  passion- 
stirred  pictures  and  personages,  instead  of  the 
spectral  forms  which  now  provoke  our  curios- 
ity without  awakening  our  sympathy.  As  it 
is,  Faust  himself  is  become  a  shadow  among 
shadows. 

In  the  First  Faust  the  principal  personages 
and  scenes  are  passionately  real  and  present  ; 
in  the  Second  they  are  intellectually  real,  and 
therefore  not  so  present.  In  the  First  the  per- 
sonages represent  theniselves  ;  in  the  Second 
they  represent  something  else.  They  are  not 
beings  pulsating  with  their  own  hearts'  beat, 
but  abstractions,  symbols  ;  and  thence,  not 
having  primitive  passions  and  affections,  we 
cannot  lay  hold  of  them  with  our  passions  and 
affections. 

This  taking  up  the  Greek  mythology  for  pro- 
longed, minute  manipulation,  is  second  hand 


240  GOETHE. 

work,  intellectually  curious ;  clothing  the  fig- 
ures with  symbolical  drapery  is  ingenious  ;  the 
whole  procedure  exhibits  a  vast  amount  of 
knowledge,  great  mastery  of  the  resources  and 
machinery  of  Art,  and  little  inspiration.  The 
attention  is  fixed  on  what  the  figures  mean,  not 
on  themselves.  This  is  wearisome.  One  re- 
move from  prose  through  poetic  exaltation  and 
transfiguration  is  enough,  as  much  as  the  read- 
er's mind  can  follow  and  keep  its  poise  ;  and 
when  to  this  is  added  allegory  and  symbolism, 
the  poetry  evaporates  in  the  allegory,  and  the 
substance  in  the  two.  In  the  Second  Part  of 
Faust  one  is  irritated  with  an  unending  intel- 
lectual hunt  the  slipper.  The  shell  is  often 
glancing  with  light,  but  the  kernel,  when  found, 
hardly  pays  the  search.  The  personages  are 
reflex,  remote,  mostly  thin,  and  even  cold. 
When  Goethe  spins  threads  out  of  his  brain 
(and  only  Shakespeare  has  spun  more  and 
stronger  ones)  we  seize  them  with  joy  and  fol- 
low them  to  the  end,  sure  of  a  prize  ;  but  the 
seizing,  if  one  can  seize  them,  of  filaments 
fine  as  gossamer,  brings  no  adequate  reward. 

Except  in  relation  to  ancient  Greek  mind 
and  activity,  Grecian  mythology  is  dead.  Into 
modern  relations  and  literature  it  cannot  be 
brought  and  preserve  its  animation,  and  who- 


FAUST.  241 

ever  attempts  so  to  bring  it  and  work  it  falls 
into  commonplace,  — -  ancient  commonplace. 
Goethe  was  right  to  call  Helen,  when  first  pub- 
lished separately,  a  Phantasmagoria.  Of  the 
Second  Part  Helen  is  the  best,  except  the  last 
scenes,  after  the  bodily  death  of  Faust  ;  and 
Helen  is  dream-like,  phantasmal,  because  she 
is  not  brought  forward  on  her  own  account,  but 
is  used  as  a  representative,  a  symbol.  To  tell 
one's  dreams  is  forbidden  in  good  company. 
On  paper,  whether  in  verse  or  prose,  dreams, 
even  of  kings  and  heroes,  are,  to  speak  plainly, 
a  bore.  A  great  poet  cannot  animate  them, 
unless,  like  that  of  Clarence  in  Richard  III.  the 
dream  be  short,  deep,  and  portentous.  Like 
most  of  the  Second  Part  Helen  is  unreal,  faint 
as  the  shadow  of  a  candle-flame  thrown  on  the 
wall  by  another  candle. 

With  such  a  plan,  the  whole  is  unavoidably 
overlaid  with  detail,  not  detail  of  fact,  but  of 
conception,  and  therefore  hard  to  grasp  and  still 
harder  to  clasp.  The  figures  are  graceful,  pol- 
ished automata,  and  therefore  without  succu- 
lence. Then  one  is  ever  importuned  by  riddles 
which,  when  guessed,  lack  significance. 

As  to  symbols,  there  is  only  one  kind  com- 
mendable, namely,  material  symbols  ;  an  eagle, 
a  shield,  a  trident,  a  thunderbolt,  a  flag.  Putting 
16 


242  GOETHE. 

a  symbol  into  words  dissolves  it :  one  is  tanta- 
lized as  by  a  vanishing  vision.  It  is  like  wading 
through  a  morass  for  flowers,  which  often  sink 
out  of  sight  as  you  reach  forth  to  pluck  them, 
carried  down  by  your  very  approach. 

Is  this  judgment  on  the  Second  Part  of 
Faust  unjust  and  untenable  ?  Possibly  it  is. 
But  to  back  it  I  summon  Mephistopheles.  In 
the  height  of  the  joy  of  Faust  and  Helen,  at 
the  very  crisis  in  the  production  of  the  new 
spirit,  Mephisto  addresses  wise  words  to  the 
ancient  Chorus.  From  a  cave  is  heard  a  fresh, 
deeply  melodious  music,  —  the  breath  of  mod- 
ern poetry,  —  to  which  all  listen  with  emotion. 
Then  Mephisto  exclaims  :  — 

"  Listen  to  the  charming  song, 
Quickly  from  you  Fables  cast ; 
All  your  Gods,  the  musty  throng, 
Let  them  go,  for  they  are  past. 

"  Henceforth  no  one  you  will  know, 
We  demand  a  higher  spell ; 
From  the  heart  must  freshly  flow 
What  upon  the  heart  would  tell." 


VII. 

CONCLUSION. 

IF  through  the  foregoing  chapters,  fragment- 
ary as  they  are,  some  readers  shall  have  a  fuller 
-and  livelier  image  than  they  previously  had  of 
Goethe  as  man  and  poet,  as  worker  and  thinker, 
my  grateful  task  will  be  well-nigh  accomplished. 
There  only  remains  that,  to  get  a  survey  of  his 
life  as  a  whole,  I  bind  into  a  succinct  epitome 
the  successive  epochs  of  his  fruitful  career.  In 
doing  this  there  will,  too,  be  opportunities  for 
supplying  additional  traits  or  facts  in  illustra- 
tion of  this  or  that  side  of  the  manysided  man. 

Entering  life  in  1749,  and  living  until  1832 
in  the  active  enjoyment  of  his  high  faculties, 
his  large,  clear  mind  mirrored  in  great  measure 
the  agitations  and  aspirations  of  the  most  con- 
vulsive, upclimbing,  electrical  half  century  that 
History  had  yet  recorded.  In  1755  the  earth- 
quake at  Lisbon,  with  its  volcanic,  instantane- 
ous ingulfing  of  sixty  thousand  lives,  stirred  his 
thought  to  interrogations  which,  in  a  child  of 
six  years,  were  as  strange  as  they  were  far- 


244  \         GOETHE. 

reaching,  A  little  later,  during  the  war  waged 
so  brilliantly  by  Frederick  the  Great  against 
France,  Austria,  and  Russia,  all  banded  against 
him,  a  French  army  was  quartered  upon  Frank- 
fort ;  and  the  boy  was  obliged  to  hear  his  hero, 
Fritz,  vilified  every  Sunday,  when  he  dined  at 
his  grandfather's  table.  "As  in  my  sixth  year," 
he  writes  in  the  Autobiography,  "  the  earth- 
quake at  Lisbon  had  brought  the  goodness  of 
God  into  suspicion,  so  I  began  now  to  doubt 
the  justice  of  the  public  towards  Frederick  II. 
My  mind  was  naturally  inclined  to  reverence, 
and  there  needed  a  great  shock  to  shake  my 
faith  in  anything  that  is  venerable."  In  his 
youth  and  first  manhood,  brilliant  intellects 
were  throwing  off  startling  sparks  from  that 
general  mental  ferment  which  precedes  revo- 
lutionary purifications.  While  a  student  at 
Strasbourg  he  saw,  as  she  first  touched  French 
territory,  the  lovely  Marie  Antoinette,  then  only 
fifteen,  smiling  and  happy,  and  playful  like  the 
child  that  she  was,  going,  wreathed  with  flowers 
and  a  diadem,  to  be  an  illustrious  victim  in  the 
terrible  and  sublime  sacrifice  made  to  humanity 
by  the  French  Revolution.  In  the  early  man- 
hood of  Goethe  Washington  rose  to  eminence, 
and  passed  from  the  earth,  crowned  with  his 
unique  glory,  ere  Goethe  had  passed  out  of  his 


CONCLUSION.  245 

middle  age.  He  saw  the  rise  and  fall  of  the 
giant  Napoleon,  who,  in  his  monstrous  half- 
ness,  did  his  utmost  to  "  circumvent  God." 
Goethe  did  not  clearly  see  the  ugly  side  of  this 
halfness,  overestimating  and  overadmiring  the 
ruthless  Corsican  despot ;  and  thence,  not  fully 
sympathizing  with  or  appreciating  the  moral 
power  latent  in  the  masses  of  a  great  people, 
at  the  breaking  out  of  the  German  war  of  lib- 
eration in  1813,  he  was  not  hopeful.  With  the 
French  Revolution  in  1830,  which  expelled  for- 
ever the  elder  Bourbons,  he  had  little  sympathy. 
When  the  news  of  it  reached  Weimar,  and  was 
in  everybody's  mind  and  mouth,  Goethe,  then 
in  his  eighty-first  year,  gave  it  but  a  transient 
heed,  so  absorbed  was  he  by  a  scientific  revo- 
lution going  on  in  Paris  at  the  same  time, 
whereby,  he  declared,  that  "  thenceforth  in  the 
scientific  investigations  of  the  French  the  syn- 
thetic mode  of  looking  at  Nature  will  prevail, 
and  mind  rule  over  matter." 

Goethe's  childhood  was  a  beautiful  bud, 
whose  peeping  petals  gave  hardly  a  hint,  even 
to  the  most  loving  and  partial,  of  the  perfume 
and  fruit  and  powerful  seed  that  lay  de.eply  en- 
folded within  them.  And  yet,  his  childhood 
was  brilliant  and  precocious.  Most  happy  was 
he  in  his  parents,  in  the  substantiality  of  their 


246  GOETHE. 

characters  and  intellects,  and  in  the  contrasts 
between  them,  these  rich  contrasts  being  in 
their  son  melted  into  harmonious  wholeness  by 
the  divine  fire  which  gives  to  poetic  genius  its 
vivid  individuality.  His  father  was  a  devotee 
to  knowledge  ;  by  study  and  travel  he  had 
cultivated  himself  with  zeal  to  the  utmost  of  his 
capacity  ;  a  man  curt  and  laconic,  very  method- 
ical, and  ruled,  somewhat  too  stiffly  at  times, 
by  strict  principle.  Goethe's  mother  was  one 
of  the  most  genial  of  women,  fine-tempered, 
sportful,  witty,  practical.  She  was  the  loving, 
watchful,  pliable  protectress  of  the  children 
against  the  straight  discipline  or  occasional 
harshness  of  the  father. 

Never  was  there  more  hungry  learner  than 
Goethe.  From  infancy  to  octogenarian  age, 
he  was  a  daily,  eager,  painstaking  gatherer  of 
knowledge.  To  second  this  early  curiosity  and 
zeal,  close  at  hand  were  his  father's  acquire- 
ments and  lively  appreciation  of  scholarship. 
The  gift  of  story-telling  Goethe  inherited  from 
his  mother.  In  his  youngest  years  she  culti- 
vated the  gift  by  her  sprightly,  fanciful  inven- 
tions, to  which  the  delighted  child  listened  with 
his  big  eyes  as  well  as  his  ears.  He  was 
healthily  precocious,  and  at  eight  could  write 
in  Greek,  Latin,  Italian,  French,  and  German. 


CONCLUSION.  247 

At  the  earliest  date  he  was  equally  peculiar  in 
his  feelings  and  ways.  When  but  three  or  four 
he  could  hardly  be  brought  to  play  with  other 
children  of  the  same  age,  unless  they  were 
pretty.  One  day  at  a  neighbor's  an  ugly  child 
so  affected  him  that  he  began  to  cry,  exclaim- 
ing :  "  Take  away  that  black  child,  I  can't  bear 
him."  He  would  not  be  pacified,  and  had  to  be 
carried  home.  He  began  early  to  write,  and 
when  his  little  brother  Jacob  died,  showed  a 
quantity  of  papers  on  which  in  his  ninth  year 
he  had  written  stories  and  lessons  intended  for 
Jacob.  The  most  extraordinary  instance  of 
premature  thought  ever  recorded  was  his  com- 
ment on  a  sermon  about  the  Lisbon  earth- 
quake,—  so  extraordinary,  that  one  finds  it 
almost  incredible.  The  preacher  had  attempted 
to  exhibit,  by  this  catastrophe,  the  goodness  of 
God.  Wolfgang's  father  asked  him  (he  was  not 
yet  seven)  what  he  thought  of  the  sermon. 
"  It  may,  after  all,"  he  answered,  "  be  a  much 
simpler  matter  than  the  clergyman  thinks : 
God  knows  very  well  that  an  immortal  soul  can 
receive  no  injury  from  a  mortal  accident." 

Goethe  was  taught  at  home.  In  this,  too,  he 
was  happy.  Except  for  a  short  period,  during 
the  French  occupation  of  the  house,  he  had  no 
experience  of  schools,  and  that  experience  gave 


248  GOETHE. 

him  a  hatred  of  them.  The  schools  of  Frank- 
fort were  then  coarse  and  imperfect.  But  even 
were  schools  more  healthily  organized  and  more 
humanely  conducted  than  they  are  yet  any- 
where, a  boy  who-  is  sensitive,  genial,  highly 
gifted,  is  better  out  of  them  until  he  gets  into 
his  teens. 

When  thirteen  Goethe  added  English  to  his 
list  of  languages,  and  studied  Hebrew.  This 
led  him  into  the  Jews'  quarter,  where  he  looked 
inquisitively  into  their  habits  and  customs. 
Studios  of  painters  he  already  had  begun  to 
visit,  and  he  was  fond  of  frequenting  the  work- 
shops of  artisans,  and  of  learning  something  of 
their  crafts.  Before  he  was  fifteen  he  got 
admitted  behind  the  scenes  of  the  theatre,  and 
into  the  green  room.  With  open  eyes  and 
open  heart  the  glowing  boy  was  an  observer 
and  student  of  men.  As  he  advanced  in  years 
his  studies  expanded.  When  he  got  to  be  fif- 
teen he  had  reached  Morhof's  Polyhistor  (a 
book  to  which  Dr.  Johnson  acknowledged  pro- 
found obligations),  Gessners  Isagoge,  and  Bayles 
Dictionary.  His  feelings,  too,  gave  signs  of  the 
coming  man :  he  fell  in  love  with  Gretchen. 

As  child,  as  boy,  as  youth,  as  man,  Goethe 
was  the  object  of  love  and  favor  with  men, 
women,  and  children*  He  was  himself  full  of 


CONCLUSION.  249 

love  and  sympathy,  and  full  of  truthfulness. 
People  of  all  ages  and  conditions  made  him  a 
confidant.  Of  life  in  its  countless  phases,  no 
one  ever  saw  so  much  so  intimately  as  he  did, 
beginning  so  young.  In  the  Autobiography  is 
the  following  remarkable  passage  as  to  the 
tragic  depths  of  his  experience  before  he  was 
seventeen :  "  Through  my  adventure  with 
Gretchen  and  its  consequences,  I  had  early  a 
glimpse  of  the  strange  labyrinths  by  which  in 
cities  society  is  undermined.  Religion,  morals, 
law,  rank,  connections,  custom,  all  rule  only  the 
surface  of  city  existence.  The  streets,  bordered 
by  splendid  houses,  are  kept  neat,  and  every 
one  conducts  himself  when  abroad  properly 
enough ;  but  in-doors,  it  often  seems  only  so 
much  the  more  disordered,  and  a  smooth  ex- 
terior, like  a  thin  coat  of  mortar,  plasters  over 
many  a  mouldered  wall  that  tumbles  in  the 
night,  the  effect  of  whose  crash  is  the  more 
frightful  that  it  comes  in  the  midst  of  a  state 
of  repose.  How  many  families  had  I  not 
already  seen,  either  overwhelmed  in  ruin  or 
hanging  on  the  brink  of  ruin,  by  bankruptcies, 
divorces,  seductions,  murders,  robberies,  poison- 
ings ;  and,  young  as  I  was,  I  had  often  lent  a 
helping  hand.  For  as  my  frankness  awakened 
confidence,  and  my  discretion  was  known,  and 


250  GOETHE. 

as  my  activity  shunned  no  sacrifice,  and  even 
preferred  the  more  dangerous  occasions,  I  had 
many  opportunities  to  mediate,  to  hush  up 
matters,  to  divert  the  lightning-flash,  and  do 
what  could  be  done.  Whereby  it  could  not  but 
be  that,  as  well  in  my  own  person  as  through 
others,  I  came  to  the  knowledge  of  many  afflict- 
ing and  humbling  facts.  As  a  relief  to  me  I 
planned  many  plays,  and  sketched  the  most  of 
them.  But  as  the  plots  were  full  of  troubles, 
and  almost  all  of  these  pieces  threatened  to  end 
tragically,  I  let  them  drop  one  after  another." 

These  deep  and  sacred  confidences,  made  to 
one  so  young  in  years,  came  to  him  through 
the  attractions  of  his  character.  He  inspired 
love  and  trust.  He  had  in  him  so  much  of  the 
soul  of  humanity,  that  any  afflicted  member  of 
it  who  came  in  contact  with  him  felt  his  broth- 
erhood. This,  his  warmly  plenteous  endow- 
ment, gave  mellowness  and  close  texture  to  his 
thoughts  and  truthfulness  to  his  poetic  embod- 
iments. 

Goethe's  father  had  long  made  up  his  mind 
that  when  his  son  should  be  ready  for  a  Uni- 
versity he  should  go  to  Leipzig.  He  had  been 
to  Leipzig  himself.  As  the  time  approached, 
the  son  preferred  Goettingen.  Heyne  was 
there,  and  Michaelis,  and  other  Professors  at 


CONCLUSION.  251 

whose  feet  he  wished  to  sit.  For  his  intellect- 
ual longings  were  all  towards  literature.  But 
the  father  was  not  to  be  moved,  neither  by  the 
wishes  of  his  son  nor  the  representations  of 
friends.  The  obstinacy  which  thus  thwarted 
the  secret  desires  of  the  son  confirmed  him  in 
those  desires.  He  inwardly  resolved  to  rebel 
against  Law,  and  to  set  up  Literature  in  its 
place.  .  He  had  an  instinct  of  his  vocation. 
Goethe  was  seventeen  when  he  went  to  Leip- 
zig, —  an  early  age  for  the  freedom  of  a  Ger- 
man University.  At  Leipzig  he  belonged 
nominally  to  the  Law  Faculty,  but  virtually  he 
was  a  student  in  the  Faculty  of  human  nature, 
learning,  for  the  most  part  unconsciously,  from 
men,  women,  children,  social  gatherings,  fellow- 
students,  his  chief  lecture-rooms  being  the 
streets,  the  theatre,  and  the  haunts  of  lively 
Leipzig. 

We  have  seen  that  in  after  years  the  one 
grateful  back  look  that  he  gave  to  the  Profes- 
sors of  Leipzig  was  to  Oeser.  He  at  once  ap- 
preciated Oeser's  teaching,  for  early  in  1770, 
just  after  he  had  quitted  Leipzig,  and  before  he 
went  to  Strasbourg,  in  a  letter  to  the  bookseller 
Reich  he  expressed  in  clear  language  his 
thankfulness  to  Oeser  for  having  started  him 
on  the  right  track  in  regard  to  the  Beautiful. 


252  GOETHE. 

With  his  fine  susceptibilities,  behind  a  keen  in- 
tellect, which  they  perpetually  stimulated,  he 
would  have  found  this  track  for  himself.  But 
it  is  the  main  use  of  teachers,  —  whether  indi- 
vidual instructors  or  the  lights  diffused  through 
an  age,  —  that  they  give  each  generation  a 
start  from  the  elevation  to  which  culture  has 
reached  as  each  comes  on  the  stage. 

In  pursuit  of  Law  Goethe's  father,  who  had 
a  maggot  of  jurisprudence  in  his  head,  sent  his 
son,  when  he  was  twenty,  to  another  Univer- 
sity. He  himself  had  been  at  two.  At  Stras- 
bourg Goethe  continued  on  a  more  manly  scale 
his  studies  of  humanity,  and  gave  time  enough 
to  his  father's  favorite  Faculty  to  get  a  degree 
as  Doctor  of  Law.  More  valuable  to  us  than 
his  thesis  on  that  occasion  is  a  discourse  he  de- 
livered on  Shakespeare  to  a  Shakespeare  Soci- 
ety, a  remarkable  discourse  from  a  young  man 
of  twenty-one,  showing  how  strongly  he  already 
felt  the  power  and  beauty  of  the  greatest  of 
Poets. 

From  the  fullness  and  readiness  of  his  pow- 
ers, Goethe  was  enabled  to  gratify  his  father 
while  yielding  to  the  stream  of  his  own  mental 
predilections.  At  the  same  time  that  his  best 
thoughts  were  given  to  studies  higher  than 
jurisprudence,  he  had  no  difficulty  in  achieving 


CONCLUSION.  253 

the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Law.  The  man  of 
poetic  mind  leads  two  lives  :  the  one  interior, 
within  his  conceptions  and  poetic  imaginings, 
the  other  exterior,  the  life  of  daily  prosaic  ne- 
cessities. By  the  calls  from  the  lower  he  often 
feels  interrupted  in  his  higher  life,  even  when 
he  can  do  practical  work  and  duties  better  than 
most  men.  Into  poems  he  can  put  more  of  the 
best  of  him  than  into  tangible  week-day  do- 
ings. Shakespeare,  the  efficient  director  of  a 
theatre,  as  there  is  reason  for  believing  that  he 
was,  and  a  successful  manipulator  of  money, 
was  probably  often  fretted  at  being  drawn  away 
from  the  everlasting  Hamlets  and  Desdemonas 
he  was  winding  out  of  the  inward  rapture  of 
his  mighty  brain,  to  look  after  the  costume  or 
elocution  of  the  very  temporary  Hamlet  or 
Desdemona  who  was  to  appear  in  the  evening 
on  the  boards  of  the  Globe  Theatre. 

In  minds  of  this  high  quality  there  are, 
moreover,  resources  that  come  not  to  the  sur- 
face even  in  their  best  work.  Goethe  speaks 
openly,  bares  many  secrets  of  the  heart ;  but 
in  a  deep,  busy  brain  like  his  there  are  undi- 
vulged  movements  of  which  men  of  less  pro- 
found consciousness  have  no  inkling.  While 
he  revealed  more  than  most  men,  he  also  with- 
held more.  In  the  recesses  of  such  minds  are 


254  GOETHE. 

subtleties  and  flames  that  never  come  directly 
to  view,  but  are  kept  for  inward  illumination 
and  refinement. 

To  please  his  father,  Goethe,  Doctor  of  Law, 
went  from  Strasbourg  to  Wetzlar,  the  then  seat 
of  the  highest  Law-Court  of  Germany.  To 
please  himself,  he  translated,  while  there,  Gold- 
smith, and  wrote  songs,  and  wrought  into  his 
heart  the  tragedy  of  Werther,  which,  in  a  year 
or  two  was  to  burst  upon  the  world  and  sud- 
denly conquer  for  him  a  European  renown. 

At  this  period  Goethe  made  acquaintance 
with  Lavater  and  Jacobi,  two  men  noted  in 
their  day,  whose  work  has  hardly  survived  to 
ours.  With  both  he  opened  a  correspondence, 
which  continued  for  ten  years  with  Lavater,  and 
many  more  with  Jacobi.  But  Goethe  so  rap- 
idly outgrew  them  both  that  the  friendship 
with  them  cooled.  A  more  important  friend, 
through  intimate  intercourse  and  his  influence 
on  Goethe  at  this  time,  was  Merk,  a  superior 
man,  somewhat  negative  in  nature,  but  finely 
critical,  who  early  seized  the  character  and  im- 
port of  Goethe's  genius.  Herder,  the  Duke  of 
Weimar,  Wieland,  all  valued  Merk  highly  and 
corresponded  with  him.  Wieland  once  de- 
clared :  "  Should  it  ever  come  to  such  a  pass 
with  me  as  no  longer  to  be  able  to  love, .  I 


CONCLUSION.  255 

should  nevertheless  still  love  Goethe  and 
Merk." 

With  inward  consciousness  of  power  and 
genius,  strengthened  by  the  fame,  which 
streamed  upon  him  in  torrents  after  the  publi- 
cation of  Goetz  von  Berlichingen  and  Werther, 
with  mind  aglow  through  animal  and  intellect- 
ual exuberance  of  life,  overflowing  with  hopes, 
projects,  wants,  aspirations,  radiant  with  per- 
sonal beauty,  Goethe  at  twenty-five  presents  a 
grand,  almost  ideal  image  of  youthful  man- 
hood. 

Doering,  one  of  his  German  biographers, 
concludes  the  opening  paragraph  of  his  volume 
with  this  sentence :  "  The  man  who  is  to  be 
depicted  in  the  following  work  was  by  the 
happy  concurrence  of  accidental  circumstances 
early  upraised  to  be  not  only  one  of  the  most 
renowned  poets,  but  also  to  the  high,  brilliant 
position  in  life  which  he  maintained  for  more 
than  a  half  century."  A  grosser  biographical 
blunder  was  never  committed.  The  commis- 
sion of  it  just  there  is  the  more  remarkable 
from  the  soundness  of  the  immediately  preced- 
ing sentence  :  "  All  that  we  admire  in  a  man 
rests  partly  on  his  inborn  capacities,  partly  on 
outward  influences."  Of  course  ;  and  had 
Goethe  been  the  son  of  a  Cadi  in  Adrianople, 


256  GOETHE. 

he  surely  never  would  have  been  the  Goethe 
we  now  have,  and  possibly  never  would  have 
been  known  beyond  the  walls  of  Adrianople. 
Nay,  had  he  been  born  in  Moscow  or  Madrid, 
he  doubtless  would  have  been  a  very  different 
man  from  the  German  poet  and  thinker  of  that 
name,  and  would  probably  have  fallen  much 
short  of  his  attained  altitude.  You  must  have 
soil,  and  rich  soil,  for  the  largest  oaks  to  thrive 
in.  The  gifts  of  a  Goethe  need  an  atmosphere 
and  auxiliary  adjacencies  in  order  that  they 
have  room  to  expand.  He  must  have  oppor- 
tunities, but  these  don't  make  him  ;  he  enriches 
them.  To  another  they  would  not  be  oppor- 
tunities. Everything  depends  on  the  life  and 
force  within.  A  Goethe,  with  his  inward  life 
and  force,  cannot  be  the  mere  creature  of  cir- 
cumstances ;  he  is  their  creator.  And  were 
there  not  such  creators  of  circumstances,  civil- 
ization would  stagnate,  and  then  retrograde. 
Nay,  without  them,  humanity  would  not  rise 
above  savagery,  could  not  go  forward  and 
upward. 

Werther  could  not  have  been  written  except 
in  Germany  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  But  who  could  then  and  there  have 
written  it  except  Goethe  ?  Who  but  he  could 
have  concentrated  the  lurid  heats  of  the  period 


CONCLUSION.  257 

into  the  focus  of  such  an  intensifying,  trans- 
figuring genius  ?  Another  than  he  might  have 
had  his  head  turned  by  the  fame  Werther  and 
Goetz  brought  him.  Goethe  was  not  to  be 
spoiled.  Circumstances  he  took  advantage  of, 
not  they  of  him.  He  did  not  allow  them  to  rule 
him  or  tyrannize  over  him  :  the  inward  man 
was  too  strong  for  that,  too  self-subsistent.  So 
with  his  meeting  with  the  Duke  of  Weimar,  a 
meeting  apparently  accidental,  which  opened 
into  a  new,  large  field  of  circumstances.  What 
made  that  meeting  prolific,  what  but  the  per- 
sonality of  the  man,  the  magnetism  of  his  pres- 
ence, the  fascination  of  his  tongue,  the  manly 
grace  of  his  bearing  ?  And  when  he  got  to 
Weimar,  the  novel  surroundings  there  might 
have  been  dazzling,  or  debilitating,  or  even 
smothering,  and  they  would  have  been,  would 
have  diverted  him  from  his  high  aims  and  as- 
pirations, but  for  his  unique  resources,  his  con- 
trolling mind,  his  self-respect,  his  shaping  crea- 
tiveness.  The  intellect,  will,  geniality,  persist- 
ency, superiority,  of  the  individual  man,  Goethe, 
it  was  that  sowed  this  new  field  of  circum- 
stances with  fresh  facts  and  principles,  with 
doings  and  sayings  and  writings  which  make 
the  quiet  little  Saxon  town  sparkle  on  the  map 
of  Germany  with  a  solitary  radiance. 
17 


258  GOETHE. 

Goethe  was  not  a  man  to  rest  or  stop.  So, 
in  the  flush  of  his  Werther  fame,  he  wrote 
.Clavigo  and  other  minor  dramatic  pieces. 
These  were  rather  relaxations  after  the  strain  of 
tense  work  than  solid  work  themselves.  When 
he  made  Clavigo  known '  to  Merk,  the  clear- 
sighted, plain-spoken  friend  said  :  "  Such  dirt 
thou  must  not  write  any  more  of :  others  can 
do  that."  Goethe  could  not  but  throw  off  what 
was  on  his  brain,  whether  the  mood  or  subject 
were  the  best  or  not.  His  greatest  works  he 
inwardly  hugged  and  carried  about  with  him 
for  years,  as  we  have  seen.  But  from  his  abun- 
dant utterance,  and  his  overflowing  fullness  of 
facts  and  conceptions,  he  was  led  to  write 
scores  of  pages,  not  only  of  prose,  but  of  verse, 
some  of  which  have  not  the  singleness  and 
rounded  compactness,  the  tightness  which  will 
let  nothing  in  and  nothing  out,  the  organic 
unity  of  poems  in  the  stricter  sense,  of  poems 
such  as  are  so  many  of  his. 

A  decisive  act  of  Goethe's  opening  manhood 
was  his  visit  to  Weimar,  a  visit  which  soon 
became  an  abode,  and  an  abode  for  a  long  life. 
When  the  capabilities  and  character  of  the  man 
are  taken  into  account,  they  may  be  deemed  a 
good  fortune  for  him,  —  those  Weimar  surround- 
ings and  opportunities.  The  full  friendship  of 


CONCLUSION.  259 

a  man  like  the  Duke  of  Weimar  was  a  provi- 
dential boon  to  a  man  like  Goethe.  Had  it  not 
been  so,  he,  with  his  warm  instincts  and  con- 
scious proclivities,  would  soon  have  discovered 
that  his  growth  was  obstructed,  that  the  satis- 
faction to  aesthetic  and  intellectual  wants  was 
not  what  it  might  be  ;  and  then  surely  he  would 
have  sought  other  conditions.  In  his  occa- 
sional miffs  with  the  Duke,  and  temporary  dis- 
contents with  his  position,  he  always  felt  that 
he  could  on  any  day  strike  his  tent  and  remove 
to  another  ground ;  and  at  such  moments  he 
may  have  thought,  with  a  justifiable  pride,  that 
the  removal  would  be  a  greater  loss  to  others 
than  to  him.  We  have  seen  that  he  carried 
with  him  from  Frankfort,  already  conceived  in 
his  brain,  at  least  two  of  his  larger  works,  Faust 
and  Egmont.  Had  he  believed  that  Weimar 
was  not  the  best  place  to  hatch  them  in,  he 
would  have  built  for  himself  a  nest  elsewhere. 

The  unfolding  of  Goethe's  powers  and  char- 
acter during  his  first  decade  in  Weimar,  the 
reader  will  have  been  able  to  trace  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapters  ;  still  more  distinctly  the  effect 
upon  him  of  twenty  months'  residence  in  Italy. 

When  he  came  back  from  Italy,  Goethe  gave 
himself  up  to  literature  and  science,  resigning 
his  chief  political  functions  as  Minister.  Of 


260  GOETHE. 

practical  work  he  had,  as  relaxation  from  poetry, 
what  would  have  filled  full  the  daily  life  of 
most  men ;  he  had  the  theatre,  the  mines  in 
Ilmenau,  the  University  at  Jena.  The  Univer- 
sity, for  which  he  did  so  much,  was  to  him  a 
resource  and  an  aid.  A  man  of  such  activity 
and  breadth  needs  co-workers,  auxiliaries.  In 
1794  began  his  acquaintance  with  Schiller, 
ripening  into  intimacy,  which,  he  says  "  brought 
a  new  spring  into  my  existence." 

Goethe  was  ever  renewing  himself,  from  the 
earth  and  the  sky,  from  all  Nature,  with  her  daily 
unworn  greetings  to  the  open-hearted,  from  liv- 
ing men  and  men  living  in  books,  from  the  in- 
visible spiritual  promptings  that  ply  around 
brains  of  fine  susceptibility.  All  these  jets, 
shooting  about  him,  the  fiery  beams  from  his 
own  yearning  alert  soul  were  ever  touching 
into  flame  to  quicken  him  with  fresh  illumina- 
tions. A  still  fuller  inward  source  of  renova- 
tion Goethe  had,  —  the  warmest  blessing  to 
any  life,  —  namely,  love  for  his  fellow-men,  a 
love  making  itself  felt,  through  kindness  and 
services,  in  small  things  and  large.  Let  me 
beg  the  reader  to  read,  in  Mr.  Lewes' s  full 
and  noble  life  of  Goethe,  the  chapter  called 
"  The  Real  Philanthropist."  Acts  of  sympathy, 
practical  love,  enrich  the  years  of  Goethe  as  of 


CONCLUSION.  26l 

few  men.  In  this  chapter  is  laid  bare  a  perfect 
exemplification  of  fraternal  helpfulness,  show- 
ing how  Goethe  relieved  a  man  destitute  of 
means  and  friends,  a  stranger  to  him,  living  at 
some  distance  ;  and  kept  on  relieving  him  for 
six  years  with  counsel  through  letters,  with 
money,  giving  him  yearly  a  portion  of  his  own 
moderate  income  (it  was  between  the  years  '78 
and  '85),  treating  him  in  the  letters  he  wrote 
him  with  brotherly  consideration,  with  thought- 
ful delicacy.  After  reading  this  account,  with 
its  authenticated  details,  one  can  understand 
Wieland's  enthusiastic  exclamation,  "  I  could 
have  eaten  Goethe  for  love  !  " 

When  Schiller  died,  Goethe  was  fifty-six. 
Just  after  that  came  the  battle  of  Jena,  with  its 
immediate  horrors  in  the  partial  sack  of  Wei- 
mar, and  its  more  remote  disastrous  conse- 
quences in  the  subjugation  of  Northern  Ger- 
many. 

There  is  what  may  be  called  the  historical 
sense,  a  discernment  of  the  unfolding  of  hu- 
manity through  progressive  stages  of  political 
transformation.  The  constitutional  history  of 
England  presents  the  clearest  example  of  this 
unfolding,  which  is,  however,  to  be  traced  in 
the  history  of  all  Christian  nations,  and  be- 
fore them  in  that  of  those  chosen  peoples,  the 


262  GOETHE. 

Jews,  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  who  parentally 
preceded  the  Christian  nations.  This  sense 
Goethe  somewhat  lacked  ;  and  hence  he  failed 
to  seize  in  the  political  and  social  conditions  of 
man,  not  the  idea  of  progress,  for  that  he  had, 
but  of  progression  through  revolt  and  revolu- 
tion, as  the  only  means  of  clearing  the  atmos- 
phere when  the  moral  and  social  equilibrium 
has  got  to  be  much  and  chronically  disturbed. 
Hence  he  did  not  fully  prize  Luther,  or  per- 
ceive the  necessity  for  the  French  Revolution. 
His  organization  made  him  averse  to  violence. 
This  quality  he  inherited  from  his  mother,  who, 
when  she  engaged  a  new  servant-maid,  forbade 
the  reporting  to  her  of  anything  tragical  or  dis- 
tressing or  disturbing.  In  the  midst  of  the 
mutinous  ferment  in  Germany,  caused  by  the 
French  Revolution,  Goethe  writes  in  his  Diary 
that  he  "held  to  what  is  established,  and 
looked  to  bettering  and  vivifying  it  by  intelli- 
gent direction.  In  this  sense  I  have  worked, 
consciously  and  unconsciously,  all  my  life." 

With  such  an  organization,  the  conservatism 
natural  to  age  made  him  in  his  latter  days  un- 
sympathetic with  popular  political  wishes  and 
efforts  for  further  liberation  through  revolution. 
He  felt  that  to  co-work  for  such  was  not  his 
part.  And  let  us  not  owe  him  a  grudge  for 


CONCLUSION.  263 

not  doing  what  it  was  not  in  his  nature  to  do, 
but  rather,  let  us  be  even  thankful  that  he  did 
not  attempt  what,  with  his  mental  constitution, 
would  have  ruffled  that  aesthetic  calm  which 
was  needed  in  order  that  he  should  do  the 
great  things  of  his  high  calling.  The  prosper- 
ity of  the  world  demands  many,  and  many 
kinds  of  well-doers.  Surely  it  were  unseemly 
to  wish,  to  the  extraordinarily  long  list  of 
Goethe's  benefactions  to  add  deeds  which  oth- 
ers could  do  who  could  not  do  his.  If  it  was  a 
fault  in  him,  this  want  of  sympathy  with  revo- 
lutionary movement,  let  us  bethink  us  that  the 
virtues  and  bountiful  achievements  of  such  men 
weave  a  luminous  veil  through  which  their  faults 
ought  to  be  but  partially  seen,  and  that  very 
faults  are  often  the  alloy  which  gives  to  pure 
metal  its  practical  tenacity. 

And  so,  during  those  hard  Napoleonic  years, 
between  1806  and  1813,  he  comforted  himself, 
not  by  issuing  patriotic  songs  and  pamphlets, 
but  with  Botany  and  Optics,  with  working  at 
his  Theory  of  Colors  (the  very  revolutionary 
enterprise  of  trying  to  dethrone  Newton),  with 
writing  the  Elective  Affinities,  and  preparing  to 
write  the  West-eastern  Divan. 

For  his  old  age  Goethe  laid  up  stores  in  the 
love  of  men,  far  and  near,  in  the  affectionate 


264  GOETHE. 

devotion  of  the  many  in  contact  with  him,  in 
the  warm  good-will  of  neighbors  and  fellow- 
workers,  in  the  widening  and  deepening  circle 
of  a  great  renown,  and  especially  in  his  intel- 
lectual delight  in  Nature,  whose  intimacy  he, 
with  singleness  of  purpose,  had  cultivated  from 
youth  onward,  and  who  now  on  his  advanced 
age  smiled  her  deep  benignant  smile,  and  still 
soothed  him,  as  in  his  tempestuous  years  she  had 
early  soothed  the  tumult  of  his  spirit.  To  the 
last  he  had  the  active,  inward  resources  of  an 
indefatigable  curiosity  and  of  a  genial  produc- 
tiveness. 

Ever  a  learner,  besides  the  variegated,  al- 
ways expanding  fields  of  Science,  the  fresh 
growths  in  all  the  Literatures  of  Europe  wafted 
to  him  their  perfume  and  profit.  In  his  Art 
Journal,  Ktinst  uud  Alterthum,  he  published 
notices  of  new  books  from  France,  England, 
Italy.  He  worked  at  the  Second  Part  of  Wil- 
helm  Meister,  at  the  Second  Part  of  Faust ;  re- 
vised his  works  for  the  final  edition. 

His  son  and  daughter-in-law  lived  with  him, 
and  his  grandchildren  played  about  his.  knees. 
Near  and  far  around  him,  part  of  the  reward 
for  his  life-long  work,  was  the  homage  of  the 
cultivated,  the  enlightened,  the  wise  of  Chris- 
tendom. He  worked  on  with  the  zest  of  his 


CONCLUSION.  265 

earlier  days.  In  1828,  in  his  seventy-ninth 
year,  he  writes  to  Zelter :  "  In  my  garden  I 
pass  many  a  delightful  hour ;  for  there  I  collect 
myself,  ancl  through  harmony  and  inwardness 
get  many  a  productive  mood."  Again  in  1830 
he  writes  to  the  same  friend  :  "  I  may  say  it  to 
you  in  your  ear :  I  have  the  happiness  that  in 
my  high  age  thoughts  spring  up  in  me,  to  pur- 
sue and  execute  which  were  well  worth  going 
over  life  again."  Up  to  his  last  days  life  and 
power  shone  through  his  features  and  his 
speech.  His  eye  was  tmdimmed,  his  coun- 
tenance unweakened,  his  mind  clear  and 
sprightly.  Among  the  latest  things  he  wrote 
were  these  lines  :  — 

"  Every  day  and  every  night 
(Thus  I  gauge  of  man  the  fate) 
Does  he  ever  aim  at  right, 
He  is  ever  fair  and  great." 

What  the  mental  characteristics  of  Goethe 
are,  of  what  quality  is  his  genius,  the  reader 
will  have  formed  some  notion  from  expositions 
and  translations,  in  the  foregoing  pages.  Merk 
early  seized  a  fundamental  feature  in  Goethe's 
organization  when  he  said  to  him  :  "  Thy  en- 
deavor, thy  bent,  from  which  nothing  can  turn 
thee,  is  to  give  a  poetic  form  to  reality ;  others 
seek  to  realize  the  so  called  poetical,  the  imag- 


266  GOETHE. 

inative,  and  that  yields  nothing  but  nonsense." 
The  latter  half  of  the  sentence,  is  it  not  itself 
nonsense  ?  When  a  poet  aims  to  give  a  poetic 
form  to  reality,  as  Goethe  does,  is  hk  not  then 
seeking  to  realize  the  poetical  ?  That  he  be 
able  to  give  a  poetic  form  to  reality,  must  he 
not  have  an  ideal,  a  model,  in  his  mind  ?  And 
whence  does  this  model  draw  the  essentials  of 
a  poem,  truth  and  beauty  ?  From  what,  if  not 
from  this,  that  the  endowments  of  intellect  and 
sensibility  in  the  poet  be  so  fine  and  full,  and 
so  enlightened  by  a  sense  of  the  perfect,  that 
thereby  the  product  of  his  working  after  this 
interior  model  remains  true  to  Nature  while 
brightened  beyond  her  general  brightness  ? 
Moreover,  when  the  poet  has  had  great  famil- 
iarity with  the  actual,  as  Goethe  soon  got  to 
have  through  his  immense  power  of  observa- 
tion and  assimilation,  he  can  then  do  what  the 
competent  sculptor  or  painter  does,  he  can  keep 
his  hand  true  to  Nature  without  her  visible 
presence  ;  and  this  he  can  do,  not  solely  be- 
cause of  his  long  familiarity  with  her,  but 
because  his  own  being  is  so  truly  gauged,  so 
choicely  furnished.  For  Lear  and  Lear's  fool, 
for  Imogen  and  Polonius,  Shakespeare  did  not 
need  immediate  models.  And  where  did  he 
get  Puck  and  Ariel  ?  The  main  need,  the 


CONCLUSION.  267 

primary  requirement  to  produce  genuine  poetry 
is,  that  the  producer  carry,  inborn  within  him, 
true  ideals  ;  and  this  implies  rich  internal  re- 
sources, and  among  them  a  pure  sense  of  the 
beautiful.  As  Goethe,  in  the  remark  quoted 
in  a  previous  chapter,  said  to  Eckerman  about 
Faust :  "  Had  I  not  had  the  world  in  my  soul 
from  the  beginning,  I  must  ever  have  remained 
blind  with  my  seeing  eyes,  and  all  experience 
and  observation  would  have  been  dead  and  un- 
productive." 

To  be  true,  the  ideals  must  be  faithful  to  the 
broad  designs  and  sane  proportions  of  Nature, 
as  faithful  as  are  Don  Quixote  and  my  Uncle 
Toby.  The  reading  world  is  deluged  with  false 
ideals,  in  novels  and  in  much  popular  verse. 
What  Merk  ascribed  to  Goethe,  sagaciously  and 
rightly  ascribed  to  him,  that  his  bent  was  to 
give  a  poetic  form  to  reality,  is  what  other  poets 
try  to  do  ;  and  what  most  of  them  partially  fail 
to  do,  because  they  have  not  within  their  own 
brains  a  high  and  true  model.  Some  of  the 
most  popular  of  modern  poetry  has  just  this 
defect.  Its  authors  are  not  deep  enough  natu- 
ralists. They  take  up  a  real  story  or  incident 
or  a  legend,  and  versify  it  cleverly,  so  as  to 
captivate  for  a  while  a  multitude  of  readers ; 
but  not  having  within  them  a  true  and  pithy 


268  GOETHE. 

ideal  (which  is  a  rare  possession)  their  work 
lacks  a  soul,  and  thence  a  genuine  body  too. 
They  are  not  in  close  and  subtle  rapport  with 
the  heart  of  Nature ;  they  cannot  "  think  the 
thoughts  of  God,"  as  Goethe  did.  They  have 
not  the  fullness  and  richness  of  sensibility  and 
of  perception  which  give  richness  of  experience, 
and  which  in  poetry  supply  body  and  substan- 
tiality. Their  thoughts  and  imaginings  lack 
substance.  Were  they  to  meet  one  of  Nature's 
ideals,  in  shape  of  man  or  woman,  they  could 
not  verify,  and  therefore  not  keenly  appreciate, 
him  or  her. 

That  Goethe  took  delight  in  the  concrete 
and  not  in  the  abstract,  to  this  we  owe  the 
roundness  and  flexibility  and  naturalness  of  his 
characterization.  To  illustrate  him  again  by 
contrast :  a  meditative  poet,  like  Wordsworth 
for  instance,  does  not  require  the  concretion  of 
his  conceptions  and  imaginings  in  organized 
bodies.  A  simple  form,  like  that  of  the  ode  or 
sonnet,  gives  body  enough  for  his  subjective 
sentiment.  Nearly  all  of  Wordsworth's  four 
hundred  sonnets  and  the  most  of  his  lyrics  are 
in  a  region  of  abstraction.  When  he  puts  his 
thought  into  a  story  or  tale,  he  limps :  he  has 
little  epic  gift,  and  still  less  dramatic.  Yet 
there  is  no  truer  poetry  than  Wordsworth's, 


CONCLUSION.  269 

true  in  feeling  and  true  in  thought.  When  the 
poet's  head  rests  on  a  sound  heart,  he  need  not 
be  afraid  to  write  out  of  his  head. 

All  great  poets  deal  in  meditation.  Goethe 
does,  and  Shakespeare  immensely ;  but  Words- 
worth is  almost  exclusively  a  meditative  poet. 
I  doubt  whether  Goethe,  had  he  known  Words- 
worth's poetry,  would  have  fully  valued  it. 
Goethe  is  full  of  profound  things,  but  did  not 
give  into  nights  :  he  is  more  broad  than  high. 
He  preferred  significant  poetry  to  inventive  or 
spiritual.  I  think  he  has  somewhere  a  fling  at 
Milton.  He  would  probably  not  have  taken  to 
Shelley.  Keats  he  would  have  greatly  enjoyed. 
In  the  Greeks  he  delighted,  especially  in  the 
sensuous,  objective  Homer ;  and  he  overrated 
Byron.  At  the  same  time  he  avers  that  Byron 
was  a  child  in  reasoning,  an  opinion  which 
should  curb  excessive  admiration. 

Goethe  himself  was  of  large  mould  in  reason- 
ing capacity.  He  had  that  high  range  of  thought 
reached  through  the  commanding  intellectual 
faculties,  whereby  are  seized  the  relations  of 
analogy  and  causation,  the  supreme  intellectual 
faculties,  which  knit  the  subtlest  as  well  as 
strongest  bonds  among  thoughts  themselves, 
and  between  thought  and  feeling ;  of  whose 


2/O  GOETHE. 

vast  agency  the  most  abundant  and  the  most 
brilliant  examples  are  to  be  found  in  the  great- 
est pages  of  Shakespeare. 

Above  these  great  intellectual  powers  in 
Goethe,  and  far  above  his  clear,  rapid,  sensuous 
perceptions,  were  those  noble  generic  sensibili- 
ties, which  give  depth  and  breadth  to  human 
sympathies,  and  universality  to  poetic  concep- 
tions, and  which  in  Goethe  streamed  often 
upward  to  link  themselves  to,  and  identify 
themselves  with,  divine  sentiment.  Illustra- 
tions of  this  mounting  tendency  the  reader  has 
seen  in  the  conclusions  of  both  Parts  of  Faust, 
and  in  the  ballad  The  Faithless  Boy.  A  still 
stronger  illustration  is  another  of  his  ballads, 
The  God  and  the  Bayadere.  I  give  a  transla- 
tion of  this  great  poem,  because  it  is  a  sample 
of  Goethe's  best.  He  has  here  a  material 
which,  as  being  warm,  palpitating,  picturesque, 
fully  meets  his  demand  for  the  sensuous.  Then 
the  legend  carries  in  its  core  a  deep  ethic  prin- 
ciple, a  principle  human  and  divine,  which  is 
the  soul  that  weaves  around  itself  this  beaming, 
undulatory,  richly  colored  body.  Then  the 
poem  is  significant  as  few  poems  are,  and 
through  that  significance  binds  us  in  beautiful, 
mysterious  union  to  the  spiritual  world. 


CONCLUSION.  271 


THE   GOD  AND  THE   BAYADERE. 

A  LEGEND  OF  INDIA. 

M AHADOH,  Earth's  sceptre  bearing, 
Comes  the  sixth  time  here  below, 
That  with  us  a  like  life  sharing, 
He  may  feel  both  joy  and  woe. 
Here  he  lives  our  daily  living, 
In  himself  lets  all  things  be ; 
Would  he  punish,  be  forgiving, 
Men  he  must  as  mortal  see. 
And  has  he  the  city  as  traveller  inspected, 
His  looks  to  the  great  and  the  little  directed, 
He  quits  it  at  nightfall  still  onward  to  flee. 

Thus  with  much  made  well  acquainted, 

As  he  leaves  the  city's  whirl 

He  beholds,  with  cheeks  bepainted, 

An  abandoned,  lovely  girl. 
"  Hail  thee,  maiden  !  "  "  Wait  thou  there, 

Quickly  to  thee  I  will  come." 
"  And  who  art  thou  ?  "  "  Bayadere  ; 

And  this  is  of  Love  the  home." 

And  now  she  bestirs  her,  the  cymbals  smooth  sounding, 
She  dances,  in  languishing  circles  soft  bounding, 
And  bending  she  hands  him  sweet  flowers  in  bloom. 

Him  caressing  she  then  sprightly 
Draws  across  the  threshold  dim. 
"  Beauteous  stranger,  'twill  here  brightly 
Shine  when  quick  my  lamp  I  trim. 
Art  thou  weary,  I'll  revive  thee, 
Soothe  thy  wayworn  members'  smart, 
What  thou  wilt  that  I  will  give  thee, 
Quiet,  pleasure,  frolic's  art." 


2/2  GOETHE. 

And  busily  now  assumed  ills  she  assuages  : 
•  The  god  inly  smiles,  as  with  joy  he  presages 
Through  vilest  corruption  a  true  human  heart. 

And  exacts  he  slavish  duties  ; 

Gladder  grows  the  maiden  youth, 

And  what  first  were  artful  beauties, 

Changed  are  to  nature's  truth. 

And  thus  shooting  from  the  blossom 

By  degrees  the  fruit  doth  grow  ; 

Is  obedience  in  the  bosom, 

Love  will  not  have  far  to  go. 

But  sharply,  more  sharply  still  further  to  prove  her, 
Resolves  the  deep  searcher  of  hearts  now  to  move  her 
By  ecstacy,  terror,  and  frightfullest  woe. 

Kisses  he  her  cheek  distained, 
And  she  feels  love's  thrilling  fears, 
And  the  maiden  is  enchained, 
And  she  weeps  her  first  warm  tears. 
At  his  feet  she  sinketh  pining, 
Not  for  lust  or  profit  low, 
And  those  agile  limbs  reclining, 
They  refuse  all  service  now. 

And  so  o'er  the  couch's  sweet  mysteries  spinning, 
A  suitable  veil,  with  their  darkness  quick  winning, 
The  favoring  night-hours  all  silently  throw. 

Late  by  sleep  mid  smiles  enfolden, 
Early  roused  from  briefest  rest, 
Finds  she,  by  her  heart  upholden, 
Dead  the  much  beloved  guest. 
On  him  falls  she  in  loud  sorrow, 
Wakes  him  not  her  anguish  dire, 
And  his  stiff  limbs  on  the  morrow 
Are  borne  to  their  grave  of  fire. 


CONCLUSION.  273 

She  hearkens  the  priest  and  the  funeral  chantings, 
She  raves,  and  she  rushes  with  soul-wrested  pantings. 
"  Who  art  thou  ?  what  drives  thee  to  this  solemn  pyre  ? " 

Prostrate  on  the  bier  she  cast  her, 

Her  wild  shriek  transpierced  the  crowd. 
"  O  !  my  husband,  my  dear  master  ! 

I  will  seek  him  in  his  shroud. 

Shall  it  be  to  ashes  wasted, 

Of  those  limbs  the  godlike  grace  ? 

Mine  he  was,  so  quickly  blasted, 

Mine  for  only  one  short  space." 
The  priests  they  are  singing,  "  The  aged  we  carry 
Who  long  on  the  earth  in  dull  feebleness  tarry, 
We  carry  the  young  ere  they  start  in  life's  race. 

"  To  thy  priest's  words  give  thou  ear ; 

As  his  wife  thou  hast  no  right ; 

Liv'st  thou  not  as  Bayadere, 

And  so  canst  thou  have  no  plight. 

Only  shadows  bodies  follow 

To  the  silent  realm  of  rest ; 

Wife  her  husband,  that  we  hallow, 

As  both  fame's  and  duty's  hest. 
Let  trumpets  resound,  let  be  kindled  the  fuel ; 
O  !  take  him,  ye  gods,  of  young  manhood  the  jewel, 
O  !  take  him  the  youth  through  hot  flames  to  the  blest." 

Thus  the  choir,  unpitying,  wringeth 
Still  more  deeply  her  sore  heart, 
And  with  outstretched  arms  she  springeth 
In  the  flames  that  round  him  part. 
But  the  god-youth  quick  upriseth 
From  the  pyre  whereon  he  lay ; 
With  him  she  whom  he  so  prizeth, 
In  his  arms  she  floats  away. 
18 


274  GOETHE. 

The  Deity  joys  in  a  sinner  repenting, 

The  lost  one  uplift  the  Immortals  relenting, 

With  fiery  arms  up  to  heavenly  day. 

A  few  final  words  about  the  man,  as  judged 
by  some  of  his  most  noted  contemporaries. 
The  man  is  always  father  to  the  poet. 

Merk,  who  was  not  liable  to  overpraise,  said 
of  Goethe  :  "  Beautiful  as  are  his  writings,  his 
life  is  still  more  beautiful." 

Herder,  almost  as  little  given  as  Merk  to 
laudation,  is  cited,  in  a  letter  from  Schiller  to 
Koerner,  as  passing  the  following  deliberate 
judgment  on  Goethe.  The  -letter  is  dated 
Weimar,  August  I2th,  1787,  several  years  be- 
fore Schiller  himself  knew  Goethe,  and  a  year 
before  he  had  seen  him.  "  Goethe  is  spoken  of 
here  by  many  with  a  sort  of  devotion,  and  is 
even  more  loved  and  admired  as  a  man  than 
an  author.  Herder  says  he  has  a  most  clear 
judgment,  great  depth  of  feeling,  and  the  pur- 
est sentiments.  Whatever  he  does,  he  does 
well ;  and,  like  Julius  Caesar,  he  can  do  many 
things  at  the  same  time.  According  to  Her- 
der, he  is  free  from  all  spirit  of  intrigue ;  he 
has  never  done  harm  to  any  one,  and  never  un- 
dermined the  happiness  of  a  fellow-creature. 
He  hates  mystery,  and  in  his  political  transac- 
tions acts  openly  and  boldly.  Herder  says 


CONCLUSION.  275 

that  as  a  man  of  business,  he  is  still  more  de- 
serving of  admiration  than  as  a  poet.  He  says 
he  has  a  mind  large  enough  for  anything  (fin 
allumf as  sender  geist ") . 

Napoleon,  after  an  interview  with  Goethe  at 
Erfurt,  in  1 808,  exclaimed,  Voila  un  homme ! 
"  There  is  a  man  !  " 

Chancellor  Mueller  bears  testimony  to  the 
love  and  esteem  entertained  for  Goethe  by  the 
citizens  of  Weimar,  especially  to  the  attach- 
ment and  veneration  of  all  who  had  lived  in  his 
house  or  had  been  immediately  about  his  per- 
son. The  same  high  witness  thus  writes  about 
him  in  another  passage  :  "  Never  did  he  em- 
ploy the  great  influence  granted  to  him  by  his 
prince  and  friend,  for  selfish  ends,  or  to  the  in- 
jury of  any  one.  I  can  indeed  affirm  of  my 
own  knowledge,  that  among  the  numerous  let- 
ters and  confidential  suggestions  which  have 
been  preserved  among  the  Duke's  papers,  there 
is  not  one  to  be  found  in  which  he  does  not 
plead  with  the  warmth  of  personal  interest  on 
behalf  of  some  instance  of  honest  service,  or 
of  promising  talent." 

This  volume  cannot  be  more  fitly  closed 
than  with  words  of  Schiller,  uttered  three 
years  before  his  own  death.  The  great  friend 
and  rival  of  Goethe  thus  writes  :  — 


2/6  GOETHE. 

"  It  is  not  the  greatness  of  his  intellect 
which  binds  me  to  him.  If  he  were  not  as  a 
man  more  admirable  than  any  I  have  ever 
known,  I  should  only  marvel  at  his  genius  from 
the  distance.  But  I  can  truly  say  that  in  the 
six  years  I  have  lived  with  him,  I  have  never 
for  one  moment  been  deceived  in  his  character. 
He  has  a  high  truth  and  integrity,  and  is  thor- 
oughly in  earnest  for  the  Right  and  the  Good  ; 
hence  all  hypocrites  and  phrasemakers  are  un- 
comfortable in  his  presence." 


THE   END. 


